


Angel of Music

by StillTryingToFly



Series: How Four and Seven Learn To Love Themselves And Stop The Apocalypse [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Klaus Hargreeves, BAMF Vanya Hargreeves, Dave lives, Eudora Patch is Alive, Everybody Lives, Fix-It, Gen, I love all of these emotionally stunted man children, It's Klaus guys he'll be back, M/M, No Incest, Protective Vanya Hargreeves, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sibling Bonding, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, no Luther bashing, no victim blaming in my house, the Hargreeves are assholes and I love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2020-08-19 18:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20213944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StillTryingToFly/pseuds/StillTryingToFly
Summary: Four and Seven have been been gone for almost a year but for everyone else, it was just a few hours. Everything is different now and no one has all the pieces. What will happen next?Part 4 of a series, will not make much sense if you haven't read the others first.





	1. One Wrong Note

**Author's Note:**

> Just a teaser while I'm moving house this week.

**Commission Headquarters**

**Time Is A Construct**

**The Handler**

If The Handler had been asked what she was currently doing she would say she was reviewing reports and making small adjustments where they were needed to ensure the Apocalypse ran as smoothly as possible. This was of course technically true; she was reviewing reports and she was making adjustments. She just didn’t usually drum her fingernails on the desk in irritation as she did so.

Her operatives had been forced to put the advertisement featuring Helen in the upcoming concert for Jenkins to finally get the bright idea that if she were gone Vanya might audition. This was concerning; Vanya Hargreeves was supposed to explain to Jenkins who Helen Cho was in terms of the orchestra, but she hadn’t.

On the one hand Number Five was chasing his tail trying to find the owner of a prosthetic eye who did not yet need one and Vanya Hargreeves had finally entered the stage again, calling Howard Jenkins to meet up for coffee. The bomb and the match were finally getting together and the pesky loose thread was following a dead end.

On the other hand something felt wrong. Like a conductor hearing one wrong note in an orchestra The Handler could feel something wrong with The Apocalypse. 


	2. WHerE hAve yoU BEEN!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hargreeves siblings are a walking talking seven headed disaster. Discuss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am currently a ball of stress. I hate moving, I hate everything. I stress wrote this in a day keep going cross-eyed looking for misspellings and grammar mistakes. Tell me what you all think :) Please:):) Thank you to everyone how had been commenting on my fics, I will respond when I no longer wish to rip my own hair out in frustration.

**Number 12 Bus**

**March 28th 2019**

**Vanya**

Vanya Hargreeves started laughing the moment they landed inside the bus. She felt awful, time travel was just as terrible as she remembered it being, but they were back and if she’d done the math right the Apocalypse was in less than a week and they had no idea how to stop it. There were time traveling assassins that she and Klaus had stolen from that wanted her family dead, and she still had all these unresolved issues with her other siblings. So that was going to be fun to deal with.

Also she’d had to miss rehearsal the day she was kidnapped and she was pretty sure none of her siblings had bothered to call to let the conductor know Vanya wouldn’t be able to make it due to being tortured in a motel. Maybe Diego’s cop friend would be able to back her up, sort of like a doctor’s note if anyone asked why she’d missed practice.

The thought made her laugh even harder; it was ridiculous, she wasn’t sure if she was going to even bother going to the Icarus. If the world really was ending in less than a week she should probably focus on helping Five stop their impending doom. If he let her.

Dave was looking around with wide eyes, trying to take everything in.

“It doesn’t look all that different from buses back home,” Dave said, his voice tinged with disappointment. “The fabric is different but otherwise...”

Klaus started giggling too.

“Babe, I told you the future was actually pretty boring and not all that different than 1968.”

“But it's been fifty years!” Dave hissed indignantly. “Things have to be different after fifty years!”

Vanya started laughing all over again.

“There’s actually a conspiracy theory that our dad is responsible for the current stagnation in technological advancement,” Vanya managed between her giggles. “There really haven’t been any major advances since the late eighties. I used to think it was just another tinfoil hat idea, but I can totally see dad purposely stagnating the world’s technology to give himself an edge.”

Their arrival had ruffled the newspaper of an older gentleman who was now looking at them with raised eyebrows and a concerned set to his mouth.

Vanya leaned forward and pushed the corner of his newspaper back so she could read the date. Hours, they had been gone only hours. She yanked the stop request cord and heaved herself to her feet.

“Come on boys, we need to head back to the Academy to let the others know what’s going on because I’m pretty sure Five hasn’t actually told them.”

Klaus snorted but followed her towards the exit.

“Oh yeah, like he told us what was going on!”

“He did,” Vanya defends stubbornly. “A little at least, we just didn’t take him seriously and so he stormed off to deal with it by himself, just like he always has. We just need to show him we believe him and that we can help.”

“Admit it, you just want to show off your powers a little,” Klaus said with a skip in his step.

“Maybe a little,” she allowed with a smile. “But those lunatics might come looking for the Briefcase and the others won’t know what’s going on. We should probably see what kinds of guns dad has stashed away so we can prepare in case they come looking for Five again.”

Dave looked at her with a look of faint amusement.

“I think your powers will be a little more effective than a gun Van.”

Vanya shrugged and pressed the button for the crosswalk. “Yeah but the rest of you should have guns. Guns are very useful when assassins are trying to kill you.”

Klaus twirled around the signpost as they waited for the light to change.

“Unless you’re Diego, then knives are more useful.”

“Unless you’re Diego,” Vanya acknowledged.

**Diego**

Diego Hargreeves would like to state for the record that he was _ not _ panicking. He was completely and utterly calm, the fact that his stomach was quivering with anxiety over what might have happened to his Klaus and Vanya was completely irrelevant and the fact that his eyes kept flicking over the rest of his living siblings squished into his car with him was just a coincidence. It meant nothing at all that he kept doing a headcount and his stomach plunged at the three missing numbers. The Apocalypse was just another thing they were going to have to deal with apparently.

The Academy was less than a ten minute drive from the gym and it was the longest, most uncomfortable ten minute drive he had ever experienced in his life, including the first time Eudora had arrested him after they had broken up.

Five had claimed the front passenger seat by spacial jumping into it and threatening to hotwire the car if Diego didn’t hurry the fuck up. Luther had just sighed tiredly and lumbered as best he could into the backseat next to Allison who was hunched in on herself and chewing on the inside of her lip again.

“So just for clarification,” Luther started and Diego had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming at him; the last thing they needed right now was to get into a car crash because Diego couldn’t fight with Luther and drive at the same time.

“You worked for a group of time traveling murderers for a few years, but you’ve gone rogue to try and stop the end of the world and that’s why those people attacked the Academy? Because they are trying to kill you and end the world?”

Five didn’t even look at him, just stared straight ahead as he answered.

“It’s a pretty simplified version of the situation but yeah, pretty much.”

“And you don’t know exactly how the world ends, just that we were all together in the Academy when it happened, someone with a prosthetic eye was involved somehow, and that it happens in four days.”

“Yes,” Five hissed through gritted teeth. “I don’t have a lot to go on but I’m trying to save you idiots so I’d appreciate it if you could keep the criticism to a minimum Luther.”

“I need to see Claire,” Allison whispered into her lap. “If the world is ending, I...I have to see her.”

Diego felt like he had to point out the obvious here.

“Doesn’t your ex have a restraining order keeping you away from both of them?”

“Fuck you,” Allison hissed at him, and okay maybe he deserved that.

“Guys! We need to focus!” Five’s sounded like he would love to kill them all himself but he unfortunately needed them alive. “With any luck Klaus and Vanya will be back at the Academy and we can figure out what Havel and Cha-Cha know and go from there. The best bet we have of stopping the Apocalypse is working together, so whether we like it or not we are stuck with each other for the next four days. Allison, I know you want to see your daughter and the best way to do that is to help the rest of us keep the world from ending. If the Apocalypse happens it’s the end of everything, including Claire. We need to stick together if we want to survive this.”

“Isn’t that what we did before, when we died?!”

“Yeah, but now you have me,” Five snarled back.

“Oh how comforting,” Diego muttered under his breath, as he stepped on the gas.

**Dave**

Dave had heard the Hargreeves siblings call their childhood home many things (a museum, a tomb, a cage, hell on earth, etc.) but somehow they had both failed to mention that they had grown up in what was the closest you could get to a palace in the middle of a North American city.

They had come in through what was clearly a stable that they called ‘The Garage’ and cut through a courtyard into a kitchen that had clearly once been a functioning deli.

Vanya tossed her duffel on a long wooden table before turning to look at Dave and Klaus.

“I’m going to head up to the parlor and see if anyone’s here, you wanna check the bedrooms?”

“Sure,” Klaus said with a shrug. “If no one’s here should we just leave a message with mom or Pogo?”

At the mention of their father’s assistant Vanya’s lips thin into a scowl. She has...complicated feelings about the man from what little Dave has learned about him over the past few months Dave can understand why. Any adult who claims to care about you but is complicit in your abuse is suspect as far as Dave is concerned.

“I’d...rather not,” Vanya finally says, wrapping her arms around herself in a mimicry of a hug. “If they’re not here we can leave a yellow flag flying from the last window of the east wing.”

Klaus is already nodding as before Vanya stops talking.

“And regroup at Super Star when they get the message, good plan.”

_ Sure okay, because their family has a code in place to regroup after violent attacks. Great. _

Vanya is heading up the stairs as she calls over her shoulder. “See if you can find any more guns after you check the bedrooms, I’ll feel better once we have more than just our service weapons.”

“Sir yes sir!” Klaus calls after her, letting off a sloppy salute that his sister can’t see but makes Dave laugh. Suddenly Klaus smile becomes even wider as his eyes follow something Dave cannot see.

“Oh hey Ben! Yeah I know I shouldn’t have opened the Briefcase without knowing what it did, but it all worked out okay; I’m fine Vanya has powers and he made friends in the past it’s a really long story so let’s walk and talk Benny.”

Dave cleared his throat to get Klaus’s attention.

“Are you going to introduce us?”

Dave is aiming for casual, he wants to make a good first impression with his boyfriend’s family and Ben had featured in more of Klaus’s stories than anyone else. It was clear that Klaus loved Ben and Dave _ really _ wanted Ben to like him.

Klaus smiled and linked their arms together and pressed a kiss onto Dave’s cheek.

“You are so sweet,” he whispered into the shell of Dave’s ear before leaning away again. “Ben meet David Katz. Dave, meet Benjamin Hargreeves,” he said as he waved to a patch of air to the left of where they were standing. 

Dave focused to where Klaus was gesturing and kept his eyes level as he waved. “Hello Ben, it’s nice to meet you; Klaus and Vanya have told me a lot about you.”

For a moment there is silence and then Klaus starts to giggle.

“Yeah, I know, time travel really fucks you up.”

* * *

They have searched all the bedrooms and looking for Reginald Hargreeves’ guns by the time Klaus is done explaining to his brother about the time travel shenanigans he and Vanya have been up to during the eleven months that took seven hours for everyone else.

“So I think that’s everything,” Klaus says as he finishes up explaining how they think Vanya’s powers work and why she’d never been able to use them before.

“Yeah, I know, I really don’t think Allison knew, but Pogo definitely did and Vanya is going to want an explanation for that.”

“An explanation for what?”

The man who speaks is wearing black from head to toe and has scar running from his cheek to behind his ear, and enough knives strapped to his body to supply a restaurant kitchen.

_ This must be Diego. _

“Diego!” Klaus brightens as his brother stomps into the room like it had personally insulted his mother.

“Good to see you too! I’m so glad those assassins didn’t kill you or the nice cop lady, that would’ve been so tragic! How have you been?”

Diego closed his eyes and breathed in heavily through his nose.

“Where is she Klaus?”

Klaus shrugged. “The cop lady? I dunno Diego; she’s your friend, where is she usually?”

“Not Eudora!_ Vanya! _ She shouldn’t have even been here when those lunatics broke in.”

“_ Oh, _that does make more sense. The pint-sized powerhouse is probably downstairs still. Why--” But Klaus didn’t even get to finish his question before Diego was storming out of the room. “Tell your druggie friend he needs to leave!” He called over his shoulder as he left.

“Hey!” Klaus squawked as he followed after Diego, offended on Dave’s behalf. In the hallway they almost ran into a giant in an overcoat who was staring after Diego with a frown on his face.

_ Luther? _

“Klaus, are you alright?”

For such a big man his voice was surprisingly gentle.

“Oh, I’m fine Luther, but we should get downstairs or we’ll miss the show.”

The big man cocked his head to the side like a confused puppy.

“What show?”

**Vanya**

Vanya was just considering the merits of ripping the creepy family portraits off the walls when she heard the whoosh and pop that signaled the arrival of Five. She spun around and saw him looking at her with obvious relief before his face smoothed into an indifferent mask. 

“Diego said you got out alright but I wasn’t sure I trusted his definition of alright,” Five was saying in a faux nonchalant voice, but Vanya could hear the fear underneath it now and she could see the longing in his eyes.

As a child he had always pretended not to care for hugs and only hugged Vanya ‘for her benefit’ but now she could see how much Five clearly longed for contact and so she rushed forward with her arms open and pulled him to her chest. Five went stiff for a moment before he relaxed minutely into the embrace, only pulling back when the front door opened and Allison called out.

“Five! I thought we were going in together! Have you found--”

Allison stopped as soon as she came around the corner and saw Vanya standing in the middle of the room.

“Oh thank god, Vanya, you’re okay. Where’s Klaus? Is he okay?”

Vanya nodded unable to take her eyes off Allison now that she was in the room.

“He’s fine, he and Dave went up to his bedroom to get changed.”

“Who-who is Dave?” Allison asked looking confused.

“It’s a long story; he’s a friend,” Vanya shook her head as she turned back to Five who was now staring at Vanya’s clothes and her short hair like he was just now noticing them, and yeah a white mini dress, black tights and white Gogo boots weren’t part of her usual look, but she loved them.

“Did you and Klaus raid a vintage store on your way here?” Allison asked with a raised eyebrow, taking in Vanya’s clothes too.

“Not exactly,” Vanya said with a small smile.

“Holy shit, you two did it. You stole their Briefcase.” Five was smiling his Cheshire grin, the one that meant he knew what mischief you’d been up to and wanted to know all the details.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you before, about the Apocalypse, but Hazel and Cha-Cha seemed to think it was real, and that Briefcase definitely was so...what do we do now?”

“Do you still have it?” Five asks looking around wildly like he thinks it might be tucked behind the sofa.

“Klaus has it, but Five I need to tell you something important, right now before anything else happens, okay?”

Five looks like had half a mind to jump upstairs but he holds back.

“What is it Vanya? We’re kind of on a tight schedule here.”

Vanya smiled thinly at him and turned back to Allison.

“Do you remember dad bringing you to a quarantine room in the basement when we were little, maybe about four years old?”

Allison looked startled by the non sequitur.

“I think so? Were there sound proofing spikes on the walls?”

“Yeah, that’d be it,” Vanya muttered darkly before continuing at regular volume. “Do you remember why dad brought you down there with me? What he had you do?”

“You--you were sick, dad said I could make you feel better by using my Rumors to help with your anxiety. Why?”

Vanya snorted and turned to stare into their father’s painted eyes glaring down at them all from his place above the mantle.

“I don’t _ have _ anxiety, Allison. I never did.”

“What are you talking about Vanya?” Five asked, staring at Vanya like he had never seen her before when Diego stomped into the room.

“What are you still doing here?” He snapped as soon as he saw Vanya leaning against the wall.

Vanya sighed deeply, so this was how he wanted to play it? Fine, game on, she was done being his verbal punching bag.

“I’m trying to help stop the Apocalypse. What are you doing Diego?”

“No, you could have been killed! Or gotten any of us killed.”

Diego spun to look at the other two and pointed at her accusingly.

“_She_ is a liability.”

Vanya rolled her eyes and reached out with her powers to lift her angry brother into the air.

“Alright, I’ve had about enough of that for the next year,” she said dryly as Diego shrieked and Allison and Five jumped back in surprise. She gently deposited Diego on the other side of the room facing the corner. “You can come out whenever you feel like playing nicely with the rest of us _Two_.”

Keeping the glow in her eyes was almost second nature at this point and she turned back to Allison with her power shining through as brightly as a star.

“I’m glad you didn’t know you were taking away my power, I’m not sure I would have been able to forgive you if you had done it on purpose.”

Exuberant clapping began in the entrance hall.

“Brava! Brava, darling! Well done!”

Vanya turned and saw Klaus and Dave smiling at her around Luther’s bulk. Luther was just...staring at her. His mouth was hanging open a little and everything, turning to look at her other siblings Vanya saw they weren’t faring much better, just staring at her like she had sprouted a second head and announced that she was now Empress of the Night.

The silence was broken by Pogo, watching them all from up on the mezzanine.

“Miss Vanya, what have you _ done? _”


	3. No Time For Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emotionally constipated man-children have a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait and the short chapter but I wrote and uploaded this from my phone and it was a nightmare. Just a heads up, I will not be posting again until I can get my wifi set up in my apartment and I can write on my laptop again.  
Please comment; they are what is keeping me going.

**Luther**

_ Vanya has powers.  _ ** _Vanya_ ** _ has powers.  _ ** _Vanya has powers. _ ** _ What the  _ ** _hell?!_ **

Luther realizes his mouth was hanging open and snaps it closed, and he would feel worse about that display if Five and Diego weren’t both gaping at Vanya too.

Because, what the hell?! Vanya didn’t have powers! That was how this worked!

Focused as he was on Vanya, Luther almost didn’t hear Pogo speak, but Vanya certainly did. She whirled around to look up to the mezzanine and her lips curled into a snarl, her tiny frame all but vibrating with anger.

“What have  _ I _ done? What have  _ you _ done? You knew, you knew this whole time don’t deny it. You  _ knew  _ I was hurting myself with those drugs my whole life and you said nothing. I’ve gone through life unable to feel even remotely like a human being because I was numb to almost everything! And you knew and said  _ nothing! _ ”

She’s screaming by the end, fists clenched at her sides, breathing so hard her chest is heaving and Luther knows that this is important, he should be helping Pogo but...but Luther is still stuck. Because _ Vanya has powers. _ And dad had always said Vanya was ordinary. And dad had lied. Dad had lied to Vanya. Dad had lied to all of them. Dad had lied... to Luther. Why would dad lie? There had to be a reason, there _ had _ to be.

Luther just watches numbly as Klaus and the other man walk past him further into the parlor to stand next to Vanya and join her in glaring at Pogo. 

_ What the hell is going on? _

**Dave**

Pogo was a chimpanzee. Their father’s manservant/assistant was a  _ Chimpanzee _ . And no one else thought this was weird.  _ Okie dokie then, that would have been good to know ahead of time. _ Dave tore his gaze away from the apparently hyper intelligent ape and focused instead on his boyfriend’s siblings.

Luther had gone slack jawed staring at Vanya like he had never seen anything like her, and not in a particularly good way if the crease between his eyebrows was any indication. Diego was standing there with his arms held loosely at his sides staring at her like he didn’t recognize her, and the other two looked varying degrees of horrified.

Vanya herself was angry but Dave knew her well enough to know her anger was contained; she might be breathing hard and her eyes might be glowing but the room wasn’t shaking and the chandelier above them wasn’t swaying. She had herself under control.

The old ape sighed and he sounded so tired and world weary as he spoke that Dave was almost taken aback by the humanity in his voice.

“You father discovered that you were capable of great things. Much like your brothers and sister, but your powers were too great. He only wanted to protect you from yourself, as well as your siblings.”

“Bullshit!”

“LIE!”

“Bullshit!”

Vanya, Klaus, and Dave had all spoken at once at Pogo’s explanation, but Vanya kept going, obviously seething at the implication.

“That is such bullshit, Pogo! I killed four nannies and he did nothing but build mom, I cracked his monocle in training  _ once _ and he made Allison Rumor me, and drugged me for twenty-five years. He was a psychopath building an army of child soldiers; he wanted us to be dangerous!”

Klaus moved forward to stand in front of his sister and looked up at Pogo with a scowl on his face.

“He just didn’t want someone who was willing to challenge him, and Vanya was capable of that by the time she was four.”

Dave looked up into the face of the...being that claimed to care about two people Dave loved dearly and found himself getting enraged on their behalf. How could anyone claim to care about someone, and be complicit in every aspect of their abuse? Unable to hold his tongue any longer Dave spoke.

“That’s why she was dangerous to him wasn’t it?” Everyone turned to look at him but he kept going. 

“She wasn’t going to be cowed into be his obedient little pet for much longer and it terrified him.”

Luther seemed to be struggling to think straight in the wake of all that had just happened.

“But, if you’d killed people, that was probably the safest--”

“Fuck you Luther,” Vanya snarls at the same time the teenager speaks up from across the room.

“How old were you the first time you killed someone Luther? Ten? Dad wanted us to be killers that would never challenge his authority and got pissy whenever we showed backbone.”

Dave speaks up again to add to Vanya’s defense.

“He crippled her and belittled her and had the rest of you do the same because she was a threat to his choke-hold on the rest of you.”

“Who  _ are _ you?” Diego bursts out suddenly, looking overwhelmed and angry.

Klaus reaches out and takes Dave’s hand, lacing their fingers together and turns to his brother standing like a shield in front of Dave.

“Be nice Diego, this is Dave, he helped me and Vanya when we got sucked into the Vietnam War.”

“The what?!” Luther, Diego and Allison all say at once. 

Five just nods and says, “How long were you two gone, from your perspective?”

Klaus shrugs. “Almost a year, why?”

Allison seems to choke. “You two were gone for a year?”

“Just eleven months,” Vanya says throwing one last dirty look in Pogo’s direction before turning to face Klaus and Dave with a small smile. “Klaus, I just realized something! We’re older now. And our birthday is in September now, how weird is that?”

“Guys!” Five barks at them Vanishing in a flash of blue and reappearing at Vanya’s side.

“Do you still have the briefcase? We might need it if I can’t figure out what caused the Apocalypse in the first place and stop it!”

Vanya held her hands in front of her in a placating gesture.

“Let’s hold off on that for now; if you take the suitcase back I won’t have my powers and I won’t be able to help. What do you know about how the Apocalypse started?”

Five looks for a moment like he’s going to argue but then he deflates and goes to sit on the nearest couch.

“Not much, honestly. I jumped forward in time and most of the building were rubble and some of it was still on fire. I ran back to the Academy, I’d only gone down the street but when I got here only the steps and the front arch were left. In the rubble I found... five bodies. Luther first, he was holding a bloody glass eye, then Allison, and Diego. I wasn’t sure if it was you all until I found Klaus. You all looked so different and I didn’t want to believe you were dead, but I could see Klaus’s Umbrella tattoo and I knew...I knew it was you all and I knew you were dead.”

Vanya’s face was shining with tears as she sits on the couch next to Five and takes his hand.

“You said you found five bodies?”

Five nods without looking up from their joined hands.

“Yes. I wasn’t sure at first if it was you or Ben or whoever killed you all because the body was so badly burned I couldn’t tell anything about them. And then I found your book and I knew it wasn’t Ben, and I hoped-I hoped so much it was whoever started the Apocalypse because I couldn’t bear the thought of you dying like that Vanya.”

Dave watches as Vanya throws her arms around her brother and holds him tight. Next to him, Klaus winces at the raw pain in Five’s voice and pulls Dave along so they are sitting opposite Vanya and Five. After a moment of silence Vanya pulls back to look at Five.

“I’m guessing the eye is a dead end if you don’t have a name already, so we should assume you’ve changed things by coming back and started interacting with us. Maybe we should go through and try to figure out what would have happened if you hadn’t come back?”

Five looks like he’s about to agree when Luther spoke up from where he’s standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“The moon! There are a lot of possibilities of course, but Dad sent me to the moon for years; it must have been important.”

_ Did he just say their dad sent him to _ ** _ the moon?_ **

Dave’s eyes flicked between Klaus and Vanya and...yeah this looked like old news to them.

_ What the fuck? How had they not mentioned this before? _

The only saving grace was that Five had narrowed his eyes in confusion and was giving Vanya a side eye trying to gauge her reaction to Luther’s statement, and at least Dave wasn’t the only one who had missed the freaking Moon Memo.

Diego folded his arms across his chest and stepped close to the center of the room keeping his eyes on Vanya in case she decided he needed to be in time out for a bit longer.

“Or maybe he sent you to the moon because he couldn’t stand to look at you any longer Number One.”

Luther’s face pinched in irritation but he ignored his brother and turned to look up at Pogo, who was still watching them from up on the mezzanine.

“And I was giving him daily updates on the conditions, I sent field samples, he must have made notes on what he thought was going to happen, but I didn’t see them in his study when I got back. Maybe whoever killed him took them, so the first thing we need to do is find his research.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Diego mutters before turning around and pulling out a knife and twirling it between his fingers.

“Hold the phone. We all died fighting this thing the first time around, right? Maybe whatever idea we come up with will get us killed? Shouldn’t Five make the plan?”

Diego had a pinched look on his face as he spoke, “Klaus, shockingly, has a point.”

Dave and Vanya both glared at Diego but it was Klaus who spoke.

“Oh danke, Diego,” he said sarcastically with a roll of his eyes. “And unless the moon exploded in the first timeline and sent huge chunks of rock into the earth, ending all life as we know it in a fiery blaze, I don’t think the moon is involved Luther.”

Klaus paused and then turned to Five.

“The moon didn’t explode right? You would have told us if the moon exploded right?”

Five just rolled his eyes.

“The moon was fine, as far as I could tell there was some sort of shockwave that leveled buildings and killed everything with a brain.” Five seemed to consider what he had just said then amended. “Except for cockroaches for some reason.”

Vanya gave him a considering look.

“So something like a bomb went off, but it wasn’t an actual explosion?”

Five scrunched his nose as he replied, apparently annoyed about the lack of certainty.

“It’s unlikely, the worst of the damage seemed to happen when the buildings collapsed, and as far as I could tell the fires only started when there were no humans left to put them out. It’s possible that there were also volcanic eruptions somewhere else on earth affecting the weather but I had no way of knowing for sure. But nuclear warfare seems unlikely as I never had a problem with radiation and whatever did end all life on earth spared the paperbacks from the library so...”

“Yeah,” Vanya agreed, a frown on her face. “I agree; explosions seen an unlikely cause, but what could possibly cause a shockwave capable of killing all life on earth?”

There is quiet for a moment before Klaus snorts quietly.

“You mean besides  _ you _ V?”

Vanya just shoots him an amused look.

“You’re hilarious Klaus.”


	4. Blows From Nowhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hargreeves put on their thinking caps and come up with a plan. Not a great plan but there is a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaaaaack! Sort of. My wifi still not up and uploading this was a nightmare! I hate how it looks but I can't fix it right now! Sorry!!!! Please leave a comment telling me what you think and I promise to clean up the format as soon as i am able!

Allison

Allison was pretty sure she was in shock; it would explain why she has gone mute as her family discusses the most likely cause of the end of all life on earth. _What_ _the_ _fuck?_

Vanya had powers. Vanya should have apparently  _ always _ had powers but Allison took them away from her and then treated her badly for not having them.  _ Oh god _ , even if Vanya hadn’t had powers the way they’d treated her wouldn’t have been acceptable, but to be gas-lighted your entire life for something that was done to you as a child was... horrific. And Allison had done that to her. 

Allison was dimly aware of the others having a discussion without her, but she couldn’t focus on what they were saying until she heard Klaus imply that Vanya could blow up the moon.

Vanya just rolled her eyes.

“You’re hilarious Klaus. I would have to be really pissed to generate that kind of destructive power.”

Vanya had enough power to blow up the moon.  _ What the fuck? _

Across from her Dave went perfectly still.

“Would finding all of your siblings murdered in your childhood home be enough to do it?”

Everyone froze and Dave kept going.

“It’s purely hypothetical of course but think about it; if the four of you got into a fight with someone and they killed you all and Vanya found you...” Dave trailed off and turned again to Vanya.

“Would that be enough to set off enough anger to end the world?”

Vanya just blinked for a moment before she gave a horrified little, “Oh no.”

Klaus was looking back and forth between Vanya and Dave, his expression growing more distraught by the moment.

“No,” Klaus interjected forcefully. “I was kidding, sure Vanya has enough power to destroy the world  _ now _ , but in the first timeline Vanya would have still been on those drugs dad made to dull her powers, you wouldn’t have been able to--”

“What if she wasn’t though?” Five suddenly interjected. “What if, in the first timeline, you stopped taking them all of a sudden, maybe you ran out and couldn’t get more, maybe they were stolen, but the point is you weren’t taking them anymore and something happened that upset you enough to cause a shock wave that killed all life on earth.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, slow down Five. Your talking about ending billions of lives over the deaths of people she happy enough through under the bus for her book.”

Vanya turned to Diego with tears in her eyes.

“You can love people and be upset with how they’ve treated you at the same time. You might never forgive me for writing that book but I can promise you Diego I would be incredibly upset if someone _murdered_ _you!”_

“And if you had only been off your meds for a few days,” the quiet man Klaus was still holding hands with spoke up again. “Remember what happened when you thought Klaus had been shot? You killed that Vietcong guerrilla and you looked like you were ready to level the entire country on behalf of your brother. Imagine if you lost all of them at once and you had no practice controlling your powers.”

Vanya’s blanched.

“But...how would anyone even know? About my powers, or the drug dulling them?”

Five waved a hand dismissively.

“My former employers treated the Apocalypse as something that was meant to happen; they would have devoted untold resources to making sure it happened the way they wanted it to happen.”

Five whirled to face Vanya again.

“Is there anyone in your life pushing for you to get off your meds immediately?”

Vanya shook her head wildly. “No! I don’t think my neighbors even know I took medication and at the orchestra they don’t even know what it’s for.”

“I might have an answer for how the secret got out,” Pogo’s measured voice came from the mezzanine where he watched all of this unfold.

“Oh?” Vanya’s voice was tight and irritated and Allison could help but think somewhat hysterically that the old Ape was on thin fucking ice with Vanya Hargreeves.   
“There was a box in your father’s study that contained his notes on all of you, including you Ms. Vanya. The box went missing the day of your father’s funeral. If your theory is correct Master Five, whoever intends to organize the Apocalypse might already have your father’s notes.”

Suddenly Klaus’s head shoots up and fixes on a patch of empty air.

“Oooh, my bad.”

Everyone in the room turned to Klaus who was looking incredibly sheepish.

“Klaus what did you do?” Luther growled.

“I thought it was worthless! It was just papers and a journal filled with dad’s terrible handwriting I didn’t know tossing it in a dumpster would lead to the end of life as we know it!”

“Is that why you were talking to yourself in a dumpster the other day?” Five asked with mild curiosity.

“Excuse you Five, I was talking to Ben in a dumpster the other day.”

Allison sucked in a breath, how could Klaus say that, they all could see how high he was, why would he taunt them with Ben’s memory like that?

Diego and Luther both look ready to lay into Klaus but Vanya just perks up.

“And what did Ben have to say about you rooting around in a dumpster like a demented raccoon?”

Klaus just looked over his shoulder to an empty patch of air as Dave snorted next to him. “I seem to recall him bitching about wanting to see a movie or the beach but for me it was almost a year ago so I could be wrong.”

Allison was too surprised to speak but Vanya just leaned around Five to look at the same patch of air Klaus was looking at and spoke in melancholy voice.

“Hey Ben, thanks for watching over Klaus.”

Diego’s lip was curled as he spoke.

“You’re honestly humoring him? You know as well as the rest of us he can’t see ghosts when he’s high.”

“And how do you know that Diego,” Vanya shoots back angrily, her arms folded across her chest. “It’s Klaus’s power, not  _ yours _ and dad always said Klaus wasn’t using the full extent of what he was capable of. Besides do you really think Ben would let something as pedestrian as drugs get in the way of what he wanted?”

Allison felt her heart beating wildly inside her chest. Vanya believed that Klaus could see Ben, believed it enough to sit with her spine ramrod straight and glare down everyone who called Klaus a liar. And god, what if Klaus was telling the truth? What if Ben had always been there and Allison had yelled in Klaus’s face at the funeral to stop pretending that Ben was there.

Vanya waved a hand in front of her as if waving off the unhappy topic.

“We can come back to this later, right now I think we should go with the theory that someone is trying to use my powers to end the world. The best way to prevent that is to keep you all safe, but I’m going to swing by my place to grab my back ups meds just in case.”

At this Klaus and Dave both began protesting volubly.

“Vanya, those things are poison, you said you never wanted to taken them again!”

Dave nodded vigorously. “Klaus is right, Van. You’re in control of your powers, you’re not going to hurt us. Besides we don’t know what these Time Travel people are planning, we might need your powers to fight them.”

Vanya held up her hands in a placating gesture.

“I’m not going to start popping pills again guys, but I do want a back up plan in case everything goes wrong okay? You two have both seen what happens when I lose myself to my rage, we do not need a repeat of our last battle in the A Shau Valley.”

“You two fought in the shit?” Diego sounded disbelieving and Allison couldn’t really blame him.

She tried to imagine either Klaus or Vanya fighting in the army and was coming up empty.

Klaus just snorted. “Oh yeah baby. War couldn’t get enough bodies, we just put Vanya’s hair in a helmet and rolled out.”

“I did cut it after Tet,” Vanya shrugged dismissively. “It was too much of a hassle to pull into the helmet all the time.”

_ Did she just say Tet? _

With that she pushed herself off the couch and looked at all of them.

“Alright, I’m going to go get my meds just in case, Five stay with Klaus in case Hazel and Cha-Cha come looking for their Briefcase, do  _ not _ just start jumping through time all willy nilly. We need to stick together.

“Then I’m coming with you,” Allison burst out. 

Allison had recently been confronted with the fact that she had treated her sister horribly for their entire lives and she could never take that back. But she could try to make it up to her sister now that she wasn’t being crushed under the weight of her own medication. She could start trying to be a better sister now, and hope that Vanya would forgive her one day.

“Okay,” Vanya smiled at her and turned to the others. The rest of you try and find dad’s guns in case Hazel and Cha-Cha make a second attempt, we’ll call if anything come up but he should be back in less than an hour.”

Vanya looks ready to head for the door but then spins to face them again. 

“Where’s mom? I haven’t seen her since I got back.”

Allison tries to swallow around the lump in her throat; Vanya and Klaus didn’t know that mom was dead.

Before Allison could think of anything to say Pogo spoke up again.

“Grace’s hardware was damaged, I am working on repairing her now.”

Diego sucked in a startled breath and looked up wildly.

“You can fix her?”

Pogo nodded slowly, “It will take a while Master Diego but Grace isn’t damaged beyond repair.”

Diego’s shoulders slumped in relief even as Vanya regarded Pogo with narrow eyed suspicion.

“You messed with her protection protocols didn’t you,” Vanya said coldly. “Why? Wanted to be out from under Reggie’s thumb but didn’t want to be stuck with the consequences?”

“Vanya!” Luther gasped sounding scandalized, but Vanya just ignored him and continued glaring at Pogo who had pulled himself up to his full height and was looking very defensively at all of them.

“I was following Master Hargreeves’ orders. He knew there was a threat coming that the Umbrella Academy would need to face together and he could think of no other way to gather you in one place, so he arranged for his own funeral and had me turn off Grace’s protection protocol so she would be unable to administer first aid.”

“Jesus,” Diego hisses under his breath. Next to him Luther looks so confused.

“He killed himself to get us back together? Why didn’t he just tell us what was going on?”

Klaus snorted derisively. “Clearly phones are too pedestrian for daddy dearest. Whatever, at least the old goatfucker’s dead. Come on, let’s see if we can find some weapons; I don’t really fancy going toe to toe with Five’s friends with nothing but some disgruntled ghosts as backup again.”

Klaus stood and stretched his arms over his head, the hem of his shirt riding up and exposing his torso. Allison was about to ask about the tattoo there that he hadn’t had yesterday when she felt Vanya’s arm link with hers.

“Come on Allison, let’s leave the boys to it; we’re overdue some quality sister time.”

Allison’s marriage was in shambles, she wasn’t allowed to see her daughter, and some shadowy time traveling organization was trying to use her family to bring about the end of all life on earth. But somehow, when Vanya smiled at her, Allison thought this might just work out alright. 

* * *

Vanya

Vanya Hargreeves stood in the doorway of her apartment after being away for almost a year feeling as if it belonged to someone else. And in a way, it did; it belonged to the Vanya that was drugged to the gills and miserable, and she hadn’t been that person in quite a while.

“Its really cute Vanya,” Allison said kindly, looking over Vanya’s shoulder into her living room.

Vanya snorted and finally crossed the threshold eyeing the blanket she’d thrown over her couch to cover its hideous pattern.

“It’s really not, but thank you for saying so anyway.”

Vanya turned to set her keys down and found herself facing a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

_ The fuck? _

“Those are pretty,” said faux casually from where she was standing near Vanya’s bookcases. “Who are they from?”

Vanya plucked the card from the plastic prongs holding it aloft and examines the name written there.

“Oh my god, I was supposed to have coffee with Leonard the day I was held hostage! He probably thinks I just stood him up. Shit!”

She reached for her phone and began to dial the number Leonard had left for her.

“Hello,” Leonard answered after the third ring.

“Hey Leonard, it’s Vanya; I’m sorry for not calling you sooner, a...family thing came up.”

“It’s okay Vanya, I figured it was important. Are you alright?”

“Oh I’m fine, I’m great actually but I might not be able to get coffee for a few days, there’s something big happening and I’d hate for you to get caught up in it.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line before Leonard spoke again.

“You’re not in trouble are you? I know we just met but you seem like a nice person and I’d hate for you to get hurt.”

Vanya smiled.

“That’s very sweet Leonard, and I’ll call you as soon as this all blows over. Just keep practicing and I’m sure you’ll stun me with your progress.”

Leonard chuckled softly.

“Well, I don’t know about that, but I hope not to disappoint you at any rate.”

“Impossible,” Vanya said with a soft smile. “Just keep practicing, I’ll call you soon.”

“Bye Vanya.”

“Bye Leonard!”

As Vanya set the phone back in its cradle she realized Allison was regarding her with raised eyebrows from across the room.

“What?” She asked defensively.

“Do you have a boyfriend you’re keeping secret? Because I want all the details.”

Vanya burst out laughing so hard she almost gave herself a hernia.

“Boyfriend,” wheezed out from where she was doubled over laughing. “Oh, I’m sorry Allison,” Vanya managed to speak through her laughter as she caught the surprised look on her sister’s face. “That was terrible of me. It’s just...”

Vanya trailed off, biting her lip and smiling at the same time.

“I’m  _ really _ gay Allison. Leonard is just someone who wanted to learn to play the violin as an adult and he’s nice and funny and supportive, and honestly he reminds me a bit of some of the other friends I made in Nam. Trust me on this though, I don’t want in his pants.”

Allison’s eyebrows had climbed somewhere near her hairline but she said nothing, just held her hands in a slight surrendering motion before turning to look over the apartment again.

“So where do you keep your back up meds?”

Vanya grimaced as she raised the phone to her ear and pressed the button to listen to her voicemail.

“I hide it in the butter dish usually.”

Vanya is distantly aware of her sister walking to the kitchen and opening her fridge but mostly she is focused on the harried voice of the conductor saying that in the absence of Helen Cho they will be holding auditions for first chair on the 28th.

“Hey Allison! What’s today’s date?”

Vanya hears the rummaging through her fridge stop as Allison considers the question.

“The twenty-eighth of March, why?”

Vanya looked at her phone suspiciously before answering.

“Just curious. Did you find the pills?”

“No, you said they were in the butter dish right?”

“Yeah,” Vanya called back, an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of her stomach as she joined her sister in the kitchen.

“I always keep them there, and I’d just replaced them before I left.”

Allison moved aside as Vanya came up behind her and they both looked in the butter dish that held only butter.

“Looks like someone really doesn’t want me to be taking dad’s pills,” Vanya said darkly as they stood in front of her fridge wondering what to do next.

* * *

“So the pills are gone?” Luther’s voice was strangely tinny as Vanya and Allison leaned over Vanya’s cheap phone to update their brothers on the latest development.

“All of them,” Vanya confirmed. “Whoever it was took what was left in my medicine cabinet before taking the back up bottle from the fridge.”

There was an angry growling noise over the phone before Five yanked the phone out of Luther’s grip and starts speaking over the other’s protests.

“Someone definitely has Dad’s notebook then, why else would anyone take Vanya’s meds?”

“Not sure if this is important,” Vanya said loudly, interrupting whatever rant Five was working up to. “But I had a message about auditioning for first chair because Helen Cho has gone missing. She’s a consummate professional, she’d never leave without so much as a by-your-leave. Especially not days before the concert.”

There is a moment of silence before Five speaks again.

“What day is the concert?”

“April first,” Vanya said before realizing the significance of the date. “Oh, that’s the day the world ends right?”

Vanya can hear Five gritting his teeth in frustration as the others start arguing in the background.

“It  _ could _ be a coincidence but given everything else that has happened I’m unwilling to bet on it. Vanya you should audition, let the commission think everything is on track for them. The rest of us will prep from the Academy. Try and see if you can refill your prescription in time just in case. If not I’m sure we can find another solution.”

“Pot,” Klaus says suddenly in the background. “Pot really mellows Vanya out. It’s not going to get rid of her powers but it could help keep her calm.”

Diego sighs deeply before he speaks. “I can’t believe I’m actually going to say this, but Klaus has a point.”

Vanya rolled her eyes at the phone before she spoke again. “I promise to smoke pot if we are besieged my time travelers determined to use me to start the Apocalypse, now can we get a move on? The auditions start soon and I don’t want to be late.”

“Just stay together, those freaks in the masks could be anywhere,” Diego’s strained voice called out before Five ended the call.

Vanya raised her eyebrows and turned to look at Allison.

“So, have you ever seen an orchestral audition before?” 

* * *

Allison

Allison Hargreeves had never seen an orchestral audition before but she was pretty sure her sister was a better musician than anyone else in this building. As a child Vanya’s playing had been background noise, but now there was something... extraordinary about her sister’s playing and it took Allison a minute to wonder if maybe that was it exactly.

Vanya wasn’t drugged anymore, and it showed in her playing. Her powers shone through in her playing and they were so beautiful it made Allison want to cry. Vanya had had this part of herself handicapped for most of her life and yet she was exercising it now with ease and grace and Allison found herself in awe of her tiny sister. And judging from the stunned looks on the faces of the others in the audience she wasn’t the only one.

It was a surprise to absolutely no one that Vanya was given the position of first chair and solo piece in the upcoming concert. Vanya’s blinding smile when she got the part made Allison’s heart lurch in her chest when she realized she couldn’t remember Vanya ever smiling like that before.

“Congratulations,” Allison managed to force past the lump in her throat as her sister made her way over to where Allison hovered at the edge of the auditorium.

“You were amazing Vanya, I’ve never heard anyone play like that before.”

Vanya’s answering smile was mischievous but pleased all the same, and she all but glowed under the praise.

“Thanks Allison. We should head back to the Academy but do you mind if we stop for a coffee first? The jet lag is killing me, and I want to be awake for whatever plan Five has cooked up in our absence.”

Allison gave a small smile in return.

“We can get coffee for everyone, I have a feeling we’re all going to need it to get through the next few days.”

* * *

Upon arriving at the coffee shop Vanya was pleasantly surprised to see Leonard, sitting by himself as he read through the papers in front of him. Turning to pull Allison along Vanya broke into a wide smile as she called Leonard’s name.

“Hey Leonard!”

He looked up, obviously surprised to see her, but pleased as soon as he realized who was calling his name.

“Hey Vanya, I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon. Is everything okay?”

“Not even close,” Vanya said with good natured exasperation. “Shit’s going to be crazy for a few days at least but I had to go to an audition for my orchestra and my sister wanted to come with me.”

Leonard’s eyebrows jumped and he turned slightly to look at Allison who was standing slightly behind Vanya.

“Oh! Hi there! I didn’t notice you, you’re Abigail right?”

“Allison,” she corrected with a small grimace.

Leonard winced then grinned sheepishly. 

“Sorry, I have a terrible memory for names.”

“It’s fine,” Allison said with a small frown on her face. “I’ll grab the coffee while you two catch up.”

“Thanks Allison!” Vanya said brightly as she sat down next to Leonard, missing the concerned look Allison was giving her.

With a small shrug Leonard turned back to Vanya. 

“So how did the audition go?”

“Really well! I got first chair!”

“First chair! That’s great! That’s...what does that mean?”

Vanya laughed at the earnest confusion in his voice.

“It’s like the quarterback of the orchestra if you want a sports analogy.”

Leonard gave her a small self deprecating smile.

“You must think I’m so slow with this music stuff.”

“Not at all,” Vanya said firmly. “You’re learning to play a musical instrument for the first time in your life, which is not an easy thing to do and I admire you for having the drive and determination to start something so challenging as an adult. Don’t dismiss that about yourself Leonard.”

“Thanks Vanya,” Leonard said, looking surprised at the ferocity in her voice.

“Sorry about that thing with your sister by the way. I didn’t mean to insult her.”

Vanya waved it away with a dismissive hand gesture.

“She’ll live, not everyone is obsessed with movie stars, and not everyone remembers the Umbrella Academy.”

A small crease forms between Leonard’s brows before a look of understanding dawns.

“Oh right! There were comic books, weren’t there?”

Vanya can’t help the bark of laughter that bursts from her lips.

“I can assure you, those comics were only loosely based in reality so the less you remember about them the better.”

Leonard opened his mouth to reply but closed it again as his eyes flicked to something over Vanya’s shoulder.

Vanya turns to see Allison standing with an awkward smile on her face; once Vanya turned around she held up the coffee carrier gingerly.

“We should get going, god knows what mess the boys have made while we were gone.”

Vanya snorted at that and hopped down from the stool.

“Look on the bright side Allison; if they burned the place down we can cook dinner over the smoldering wreckage of that shit hole."

Neither of them had noticed the unobtrusive looking business man in a suit who had snapped a quick photo of Vanya sitting with Harold Jenkins. To be fair, the unobtrusive looking business man in a suit had failed to notice _Allison_ _Hargreeves _so they were ahead on that score.

* * *

Dave was waiting at the door when Vanya parked their father’s classic car across the street.

Signing deeply Vanya climbed out of the car and started walking towards the front door.

“What happened?” Vanya asked as soon as she got close enough to be heard without shouting.

Dave merely raised his eyebrows and reached for the doorknob.

“You know, compared to the rest of your family, you and Klaus are remarkably well adjusted.”

Allison and Vanya shared a look of muted horror and hurried up the steps.

From the foyer they could hear Diego and Five shouting at each other from the mezzanine and see Luther helping himself to Dad’s liquor cabinet.

“Luther?” Allison called hesitantly as Vanya forcibly separated Five and Diego. 

Klaus was in the corner sorting through boxes of ammo as he listened to his music apparently unaware the situation had devolved around him.

As soon as she walked into the room it was obvious to Vanya that Luther had been crying before he'd even started drinking. He was hunched in on himself holding a bottle of brandy to his chest, looking up at Allison as if he didn't really see her.

“I found Dad’s research from my mission on the moon,” Luther said before taking another swig of brandy. “Every single package was still sealed; why would he-he never opened them because he didn’t care what I was doing up there! Four years of my life: a lie. What an asshole.”

_ Oh boy. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IF I CAN'T FIX THE FORMAT IM GOING TO TAKE THIS CHAPTER DOWN AND REPOST IT WHEN I GET WIFI. SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE.


	5. Watch The World Go By

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honestly most of these idiots problems would be solved if they just talked to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! This one was a bit longer than I originally intended and I would love to know what you all think of the changes I've made so far. I love reading your comments and they truely are my biggest motivator:) See the end for more notes.

**Dave**

The longer Dave Katz spent inside the Hargreeves mansion the more he was beginning to see _ exactly _ what Klaus had meant when he said that his family was like an unstable chemical reaction. Chain reactions of unintended consequences that bubbled over into dangerous situations. And that was _ without _ factoring in a fast approaching Apocalypse and time traveling assassins to contend with.

Dave wasn’t sure exactly what Five and Diego were arguing about but the shouting was getting louder and Dave was willing to bet it was going to get physical soon. The worst sibling fight he’d ever witnessed was when his twin sisters had been sixteen and angrier with each other than he had ever seen them, and as scary as it had been to watch them scream like harpies and try and rip each other’s hair out, neither of them had combat training or superpowers; the Hargreeves siblings had both. Dave decided he wanted to stay as far away from _ that _ as he could until Vanya got back so she could play referee.

On his way downstairs he’d passed Luther who had tears in his eyes and was asking Pogo why he’d been sent to the moon if his research was never even opened. The old chimpanzee didn’t seem to have an answer for him and Dave watched as Luther crumpled in on himself.

_ Wonderful. _ Well it looked like everyone was finally aboard the “Reginald Hargreeves is a dick” train, choo choo next stop bad coping mechanisms and, _ ah yes _, he’s gone with alcohol. Time to check on Klaus and wait for Vanya.

Klaus (who at least seemed to be handling himself despite the discomfort of being back in this place) was sorting through a large stockpile of ammo and stacking it neatly against the wall when Dave entered the parlor. Klaus pushed his headset off his ears when Dave tapped gently on his shoulder, took one look at Luther and grimaced.

“So that bubble finally popped huh? Took him long enough, but Allison’ll be back soon and she’s always been better with Luther than any of the rest of us.”

And with that he kissed Dave’s cheek and put his headset back on and started sorting through the boxes of ammunition he’d found squirreled away.

Dave tried to be as relaxed as Klaus but he was incredibly relieved when Vanya and Allison showed up a few minutes later and Vanya immediately separated her arguing brothers and Allison headed into the parlor where Luther was sitting by himself with a bottle of brandy drunkenly explaining what Reginald had done to him.

“Dad was an asshole,” Allison says consolingly as the others make their way into the room, Five and Diego looking a bit like scolded children under Vanya’s scowl. Dave gently tapped Klaus’s shoulder again to get his attention and he pushed his headset off to hear the conversation.

“I’m not the right person to lead this team, I don’t think I ever was Allison.”

“Luther,” Allison say softly reaching to take the bottle from Luther’s limp grasp.

“No, the world needs a leader and I’m not it, I’m not.”

“You’re just realizing this now?” Diego was clenching his jaw so hard Dave is honestly a little impressed that he can get any sound past his lips but he can’t help but think that this probably wasn’t the time to be bringing that up.

Luther turned to look at the others.

“Dad knew it, you all knew it, and now I know it too. I’m done.”

Vanya’s forehead wrinkled in concern at Luther’s words.

“You do realize you were abused, don’t you Luther?”

Vanya’s face was filled with a gentle sort of pity Dave had only seen her give the village children before. It is almost startling to see it now turned on her giant of a brother.

“I mean, we all were,” she went on. “But you were trapped in this place trying to win affection from a man incapable of giving it. Parents love their children because their children are there to be loved, not because they earned the right to be given affection.”

Allison was nodding vigorously as Vanya spoke.

“She’s right Luther. The way dad treated all of us was horrible, but at least the rest of us weren’t constantly around him anymore. You were still here, under his thumb; I can’t imagine carrying the weight of that by yourself.”

Vanya licked her lips before she spoke up again.

“My therapist said the way we were raised affected my ability to form meaningful relationships, communicate clearly with others, or form healthy coping mechanisms; the same is probably true of the rest of you.”

“Hey!” Diego started but Klaus flapped his hand dismissively at him.

“No no Diego, that was fair; we resemble that implication,” Klaus said with mock cheer before he looks to the left and narrows his eyes. “Oh shut your pie hole Ben!”

This seemed to be too much for Luther and he looked like he was ready to burst into tears or start throwing things when Allison took his hand.

“Come on Luther, I want to show you something.”

Luther just looked up at her with a confused look on his face.

“What is it?”

“You have to come and see,” was all Allison said before leading him away with a sad smile on her face.

Diego still looked ready to follow after them and rip Luther a new one, but Dave just shook his head.

“It sounds like Luther’s going through a lot right now. He’s spent his whole life blaming himself for not being enough because it was easier than accepting that Reginald didn’t love him. Not being loved by a parent is not only painful, its humiliating. Most people would do anything rather than accept that. It sounds like your brother swallowed the abuse for years longer than the rest of you then went to the moon because the alternative was realizing that he wasn’t loved.”

Five jumps from where he was standing at the edge of the room and glares at the others looking like he wanted to scream.

“We don’t have time for this!”

“I think we do,” Vanya says cautiously, her lips pursed in thought. “We know that your...former employers want to use me to end the world, but I’ve got a handle on my powers and we know they’re coming so we can try and keep the rest of you safe for the next few days. We should probably do some things to throw them off in the meantime though, just to be safe. Maybe some research into the prosthetic eye so it looks like you don’t know what’s going on? Then blackmail Hazel and Cha-Cha into telling us what they know. Once we have a clearer picture we can work on removing the underlying threat.”

Five opened his mouth to argue, stopped, and snapped it closed again with a look of grudging acceptance.

“That is...not a terrible plan,” he admitted sulkily.

Dave feels a little offended on Vanya’s behalf; it was a pretty good plan considering they were mostly operating in the dark here.

Vanya just smiled winningly at her brother.

“Thank you,” she said smugly. “So where should we start pretending to look for the owner of the mysterious eyeball?”

* * *

**Hazel**

To say that Hazel was not having a very good day would have been a massive understatement. They had no leads on their target, their prisoners had escaped, and their briefcase was nowhere to be found. All in all, shitty day. Cha-Cha wasn’t helping to improve his mood.

“It's not here,” she all but snarls as she slams the washing machine door closed and turns around to lean on the doorframe.

_ So apparently it was up to Hazel to be the voice of reason here. _

“Maybe the junkie took it,” Hazel said with exasperation.

“No shit, any other brilliant insights you wanna throw at me?”

_ Oh goody! We’re fighting again! How novel! _

“Yeah, I got a couple.”

But before he could even begin listing them he’s interrupted by the familiar whooshing clang of a pneumatic tube landing nearby. Glancing at Cha-Cha with trepidation he pops open the locker and removes the tube, handing it to Cha-Cha to shake the memo into his open palm.

"Violation code 6870-4A, unauthorized round-trip travel to 1968. Explanation required,” Hazel reads aloud with mounting irritation.

"Shit, the junkie,” Cha-Cha says glancing over the memo herself as Hazel replaces the tube inside the locker.

“Or the sister,” Hazel mutters darkly but Cha-Cha wasn’t listening to him, what else was new?

“What the hell does he think this is? A travel agency?”

Hazel sends the tube off with another _ WHOOSH _. 

“Damn it, Hazel.”

“I know.”

“If we don't get that case back soon, we're screwed.”

“We wouldn't be if you stuck to protocol and carried the briefcase with you.”

“Well, maybe if you carried it once in a while, we wouldn't have this problem to begin with! My physical therapist isn't even covered by insurance; you don't hear me complaining!” 

“Oh, so this is you suffering in silence?”

_ I hate you. _

“Can we not do this now?”

“Fine! We need to get back to that family compound and find that junkie.”

_ Is she insane? _

“Are you serious? We barely got out alive last time.”

“Well we can't go back until we know what we're dealing with,”Cha-Cha acknowledged with a wave of her hand. “I'll do some digging on the family while you look for that junkie. Let's get our briefcase!”

“Fine!” Hazel muttered as he headed out, not liking this plan at all.

* * *

The moment Hazel walked into the donut shop he knew that whatever happened here was going to be, by far, the best part of his day. He knew this because the first thing that Agnes does upon seeing him is to gasp in a quick breath and give out a soft wistful sigh.

“Long time no see,” she said with a smile and Hazel can feel something frozen inside of himself beginning to thaw.

“Well busy today, huh?” He said gesturing around the bustling diner. 

“Oh,” Agnes says easily with a small shrug. “Tuesday specials, cream-filleds are half off. If we don't sell them by midnight, they get as hard as hockey pucks.”

Hazel hmmhs in acknowledgement.

“So, what can I get ya?”

She’s smiling. God she has a beautiful smile.

“That's a good question. Glazed: Reliable, simple. Chocolate's rich and sensual.” Agnes chuckles as he continues to consider his options aloud. “Cherry-filled: Big upside, greatest potential for disappointment.”

Agnes doesn’t seem sure what to say; Hazel can’t really blame her.

“I don't know what to do,” he says and he doesn’t mean about the donuts. “I think I'll just sit here and...think about it.”

“Well, you better...figure it out in a hurry, because I'm about to go on my lunch break.”

“Well, I could eat.”

* * *

**Klaus**

Klaus Hargreeves was nauseous. Yes part of it was the aftereffects of time travel, but a lot of it was lack of drugs in his system. He hadn’t told the others yet, he wasn’t ready to explain to Vanya why he wanted to get clean and he wasn’t sure the others would believe him. But it was hard to hide anything from Ben.

Ben who had watched his flush his collection of pills down the toilet while Dave was in the other bathroom taking a quick shower. Ben who was looking both confused and oddly hopeful. He didn’t say anything until Klaus was sitting by the open window in his bedroom smoking a cigarette.

“You gonna tell me what brought on this on?” Ben asked with a raised eyebrow waving his hands to indicate the ransacked state of the room.

Klaus took another drag of his cigarette and shrugged.

“I did keep some pot just in case Vanya needs it later, but I wanted to try and do something.”

Ben looked like he was holding back a smile.

“Good for you Klaus, but I gotta ask...what was so important to you that you are finally honestly trying to get sober?”

Klaus snorted at that, taking another drag from his cigarette.

“Dave,” he said simply. “He knows why I do drugs and he doesn’t think less of me for it, probably because we jumped here from 1968 and _ boy _ let me tell you nearly everyone was on something then but...” Klaus trailed off biting his lip gently. “But I wanted to try and conjure his parents.”

Ben’s eyebrows go up at that.

“Did he ask you to--” Ben started to ask but Klaus was already shaking his head.

“No, his mother did.”

Now Ben looks genuinely shocked so Klaus continues to ramble on.

“Dave told her that in the future two men can get married and she asked him to make sure we have a Rabbi at the wedding and then she and I had a talk about it and she said she was just sad she wouldn’t be able to be there for him in person and I told her about seeing the ghosts and she asked if I could...if I could try to...” Klaus trailed off taking another drag from his cigarette.

“I haven’t told him yet,” Klaus said softly without making eye contact. “I don’t want to get his hopes up if I can’t actually,” Klaus waved his hand vaguely. “Do more than I usually do.”

Because even when he’d been sober, no one else had seen the ghosts. Just Klaus. But for Dave, Klaus was willing to make an effort. Besides, Klaus actually liked Miriam and Jacob, and he did want them at his wedding.

“You really do love him, don’t you?” Ben whispered, his voice filled with awe and realization. “More than you’ve ever loved anyone.”

“Yeah,” Klaus said with a hoarse whisper. “I really do.”

* * *

**Hazel**

“This is nice,” Hazel said looking around on he and Agnes have gotten settled in.

It isn’t much, an alley with an overflowing dumpster not twenty feet away, and he’s sitting on discarded automotive seats that had a long thin tear in the leather upholstery while Agnes has perched on a small metal chair that Hazel can easily imagine is her usual seat. It smelled like garbage and cigarette smoke but in the tiny strip of grass on the opposite side of the alley someone had planted small trees along the length of the wall; they make for a nice distraction if you focused on them hard enough.

“Yeah,” Agnes said with a quiet happiness. “My friends live here. I'm a twitcher,” she admitted with a small laugh.

“What's that, like a drug thing?”

Hazel wouldn’t have minded if it was, but Agnes didn’t seem the type, and she wasn’t acting like any addict he’d ever met. 

“No!” Agnes laughs without malice or affront, covering her mouth with one hand as if embarrassed to have give Hazel the wrong impression. “No, that's what we bird-watchers call each other.”

“Oh! Well...” Hazel trails off and they both chuckle quietly. But Agnes perks up the moment she hears a bird’s call.

“Oh, you see, now, there's...” Agnes clicks her tongue before continuing, “a red-bellied sapsucker. Looks like he's a little shy with the ladies.”

She’s smiling again and Hazel actually feels his heart flutter in his chest.

“Wow, look over there,” Agnes indicates one of the trees across from them. “That is a jack pine warbler, also known as a Kirtland warbler, very rare.”

Hazel hums with polite interest, even if he’s really more interested in Agnes herself than the birds she likes to watch.

“So, you just...sit here and watch 'em?”

“Mm-hmm,” Agnes mumbled around a bite of her sandwich.

“You don't shoot at 'em or anything?” Hazel asked, feeling he already knew the answer to that question. Indeed, Agnes seemed shocked that he’s even asked. 

“Never,” she said firmly. “I just...I like how free they are, just completely in the moment. You know, when they're hungry, they eat, when they're tired, they nest, when they're horny, they...” she trailed of giving him a look that said exactly what they did when they were horny.

“Oh,” Hazel said and then they were chuckling again.

“Secret of life, huh?” Hazel said after a moment. “Keep things simple. We just complicate everything.”

“Oh, isn't that the truth?” Agnes said with a nod.

“I used to enjoy my life,” Hazel said tiredly. “It was all about work, really. Lately, I just...find myself goin' through the motions.”

“Oh?”

“I'm on the road 52 weeks a year, no place to call home.”

“Oh, well, that must be so hard, not being in one place long enough to get comfortable,” Agnes said with empathy. “I mean, I would miss my bed.”

Hazel couldn’t help the sad chuckle that escaped his lips at that.

“Well, I don't even own a bed.”

“That is so sad,” Agnes said with a frown. “I mean, everybody should have a nest to fly to when they're tired.”

And she was so compassionate that Hazel couldn’t stand it, he had to change the topic.

“What about you? My guess is you don't wanna spend the rest of your life sellin' donuts to people like me.”

“Well, I've been saving a nest egg to, uh, to move to the country. I'm gonna have a vegetable garden and maybe even open up my own bakery, and experiment with vegan doughnuts.”

“That's a nice plan,” Hazel said and he genuinely meant it. She sounded so excited when she described this life she hoped to have away from this crappy city that it made Hazel smile too.

“Another year or so, I will have saved enough to go,” Agnes told him proudly.

Hazel felt his smile fall; she wasn’t going to live that long. No one was going to live that long; the world was ending in a few days and Agnes wasn’t going to ever get the chance to have her life in the country.

“Hey, you might wanna...fast-track your timeline.”

Agnes turned sharply to look at him. “Really? Why?” Her eyes were so earnest it made Hazel want to cry a little.

“Life is short,” Hazel said firmly. “Future doesn't come with any guarantees. You want somethin' in life, you gotta go for it.”

Agnes looked thoughtful, considering what Hazel has just said, and Hazel decides to take his own advice and reaches out to take her hand.

The soft smile she gives him is more precious than he could have ever imagined.

* * *

**Five**

Vanya was sitting on the kitchen table cleaning a gun while swinging her legs back and forth as Five composed a message for Hazel and Cha-Cha that would lure them into the open.

Five had managed to find a black briefcase to use as bait for the erstwhile assassins so now it was just down to sending these messages to all the possible motels where they could be staying and waiting for them to show up at the rendezvous point.

“So who do you think should come with us on our mission?” Vanya asks with a small smile pulling at her lips.

They had already discussed this; Five had wanted to meet with Hazel and Cha-Cha alone, but Vanya wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted that her presence would help keep them from focusing entirely on Five but also make it clear to them that they still had the briefcase. She also wanted to bring at least one more person with them and graciously let Five have first pick.

Something about her tone makes Five pause; she sounded... _ so _different from what he remembered from his blurry childhood memories. She seemed substantial now, whole and real in a way she hadn’t been before.

He had tried to picture what she would be like as an adult, as the adult who’d had the guts to spill the family secrets, but even in his wildest fevered imaginings had he pictured her as confident pr as playful as the woman who sat in front of him now.

Even he could see that the Vanya who was drugged with suppressants was a very different person than Vanya without the pills. She was more alive now than she’d been the day of the funeral.

Once they saved the world he was looking forward to getting to know this version of his sister, but for now he had to focus on the Apocalypse.

“I think just you, me, and Luther for this particular meeting, so long as the big lug has sobered up enough in time.”

Vanya just shrugged and continued cleaning her gun.

Glancing at his sister as she cleaned her gun Five found her could very easily imagine her serving in Vietnam. Which was...disconcerting to say the least. She’d always been his favorite sibling, Ben coming in as a close second, but it was Vanya he had missed the most in his time in the future. Imagining her in the pit of human suffering that was Vietnam circa 1968 made his stomach queasy. What did it say about her life here and now that she seemed happy after almost a year then and there? Speaking of which...

“How long did it take you to work out how the briefcase works? They don’t exactly come with a user manual and I can’t imagine Hazel or Cha-Cha explained it to you.” 

Vanya snorted as she worked on cleaning the barrel.

“Well we were busy with Tet at first and then there was the whole mastering my powers thing so I didn’t have a lot of time to focus on the Briefcase the first two months but after that I was able to figure it out pretty quickly. We could have come back sooner but Klaus wanted to stay with Dave and I wasn’t ready to leave either.”

Five considered her words before he spoke again.

“For what it's worth I am sorry you and Klaus got tortured because of me, and I’m sorry you had a better time in an active warzone than you did here.”

“It’s not your fault Five; you did warn me about the Apocalypse, I thought you were crazy and ignored your warning.”

She winced as she said that.

“I am so sorry about that, by the way.”

Five just waved it off.

“I’m hard to take seriously with this stupid baby face, and I’ve been informed that I come off a little manic when I’m talking about the Apocalypse.”

“All the same Five, I want you to know I am sorry.”

Weirdly enough, the apology did make him feel a little better, especially now that he had someone he could trust on his side.

“Thank you Vanya.”

They work in silence for a few minutes before Vanya spoke again.

“How much do you think Hazel and Cha-Cha will know about what’s going on?” 

“Judging from the fact that they kidnapped and tortured _ you _, I’m not sure they know all that much honestly. They almost certainly didn’t know you were going to be the cause of the Apocalypse; I can’t imagine they’d risk messing up the end of the world like that.”

Five stopped in his scribblings to scowl at the room.

“Now that is just poor planning; not telling your operatives vital information like that could have lead to a major problem on their end of things if you’d died.”

Vanya snorted and began to reassemble the handgun.

“Seriously,” Five said setting down the note he was working on. “I can just imagine the Handler’s face when she realizes that Hazel and Cha-Cha nearly killed her Apocalypse bomb while they were trying to find little old me.”

Vanya’s face clouded with confusion.

“Who’s the handler?”

Five shrugged.

“The woman who recruited me after I spent 42 years at the end of the world.

The light fixture above them began to swing ominously as Vanya’s face darkened.

“Tell me about her.”

* * *

**Hazel**

Hazel had been right, his time with Agnes had been the best part of his day and after he had waved goodbye as she walked back into Griddy’s his day had gone downhill. He hadn’t found the briefcase in any of the pawn shops or second hand stores in town and he was tied and his feet were sore and as Cha-Cha opened the motel door he got a look at the room they would be staying in.

“Singles instead of doubles. What's next, futons on the floor?”

Hazel was pretty sure they’d do it too; if they were feeling petty enough.

“What difference does it make? We're only here another night,” Cha-Cha said setting her take-out on the chest of drawers.

“Well, that's easy for you to say,” Hazel grumbled as he set his bag on the bed and tossed his suit jacket down next to it. “I've been in every pawn shop all over town, lookin' for our briefcase. You've been relaxing in the library.”

“Well, at least we know somethin' on the family that can help,” Cha-Cha said holding up a paperback book with a morose looking little girl on the cover. “It's like a Hargreeves family handbook; let me tell you, they're a real freakin' mess. Number Five can time travel without a briefcase, but not that well. The big oaf lived on the moon for a few years. The junkie can conjure the dead, which explains why he knew about the dead Russian yesterday. And the idiot in the mask can curve anything he throws, usually knives.”

There’s a knock at the door and they both go tense and reach for their weapons, Cha-Cha covering the door as Hazel goes to the window.

“Motel clerk,” he says lowering his weapon.

Cha-Cha scowls and yanked the door open taking the note from the clerk and shutting the door quickly. She set her gun down on top of the TV and opened the small piece of paper before looking up with wide surprised eyes.

“It's from Five!”

“How'd he find us?” Hazel asked in exasperation.

“Well, he _ was _ us. He knows all the protocols. He says he has the briefcase, wants to set up a meeting. Come on, we're late already.”

_ Oh because this can’t possibly end badly. _

* * *

**Vanya**

Luther didn’t look especially happy to be crammed in the backseat of the car while Five and Vanya sat up front as they waited for Hazel and Cha-Cha to show up.

To be fair, with shoulders like that Luther would be hard pressed to fit anywhere in the car.

Vanya snuck a quick peek at Luther in the rear-view mirror and frowned. She’d wanted to ask at the funeral what the hell had happened to make his muscles swell like that (she watched the news okay? He had not looked like _ that _ when she wrote her book) but in the end she had been too nervous to ask. Now she wondered if she _ should _ pry, Vanya is about to ask when Five suddenly speaks up next to her.

“You know, I never enjoyed it.”

He’s not looking at her, or at Luther, just staring at his hands in his lap.

“What?” She asked feeling a little lost.

“The killing,” Five said shortly and Vanya realized he was thinking back to their earlier conversation where he’d told her about his work for “The Commission” under the handler.

“I mean, I was I was good at my work,” Five continued trying to sound blase but Vanya knew him too well to believe that. “And I...I took pride in it. But it never gave me pleasure.”

Five suddenly turned his head to look at her, an uncertain look on his face, as if we wanted reassurance that she knew he hadn’t wanted to become what he had become.

“I think it was all those years alone. Solitude can do funny things to the mind.”

Vanya knew how easy it was to feel alone while surrounded by a bustling city, she couldn’t imagine what Five had gone through in the Apocalypse. Unsure of what to say Vanya reached out and took Five’s hand, lacing their fingers together. From the backseat Luther spoke up.

“Yeah, well, you were gone for such a long time. I only spent four years on the moon, but that was more than enough,” Luther says with a grimace. “It's the being alone that breaks you.”

They all sit in silence for a moment before Luther adjusts the handle of the Briefcase sitting between Vanya and Five.

“You think they'll buy it?”

“Well, what I do know is that they're desperate. It's like a cop losing his gun,” Five explained. “If the Commission finds out, they'll be in deep shit. Oh, not to mention the fact that they'll be stuck here until they get it back.”

Luther nods, considering. “Well, I should hold onto it.”

Five and Vanya both turn and look at him with raised eyebrows. 

“In case they make a move on you two.”

Five’s eye flick to Vanya’s face, silently asking her opinion, Vanya shrugs back. She’s taken out entire regiments with her fury; she’s sure she can handle anything her former kidnappers dish out.

Five turned to look at Luther. “Okay, Luther, but be careful. I mean, I've...I've lived a long life, but you're still a young man. You got your whole life ahead of you. Don't waste it.”

Vanya has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at the look of complete bafflement on Luther’s face.

Her good mood only lasted until she looked out the windshield and saw a small blue car approaching down the otherwise deserted road.

“Here we go,” Five muttered under his breath as they all reached for their doors.

The blue car slowed down as it passed them and Vanya and Five stood shoulder to shoulder as they waited for Hazel and Cha-Cha to get out of their car.

“If this all goes sideways, do me a favor and tell Delores I'm sorry,” Five’s voice was so sincere that Vanya forgot for a moment that “Delores” was a one armed mannequin her brother lugged around with him. Then she remembered and immediately made a mental note to start looking for a good therapist for Five as soon as this was over.

“We’re going to be fine, but if it makes you feel better I promise.”

Five gave her a grim smile and started walking towards the halfway point.

“The masks really necessary?” Five asked dryly as Hazel and Cha-Cha make their way towards them.

They both took their masks off and tossed them aside with clear annoyance.

“So where is it, kid?” Cha-Cha snarled at Five.

“Wow, that's how you're gonna start? You know, we can get right back in our car and call it a day.”

“You won't even make it halfway there,” Cha-Cha said with a sneer pulling out a gun.

“Wanna bet?” Vanya asked, her eyes weren’t glowing but she already had enough of a grip on the gun that she knew Cha-Cha wouldn’t make her mark if she tried.

Five waved a placating hand in front of her before he spoke. “Maybe, but as I'm sure you found out in your previous foray, my brother is not your average giant.”

“He's right,” Hazel said with a grimace. “You dropped a chandelier on him, got right back up.”

“By the time you took him out, he'd smash your precious briefcase to a pulp.”

“Probably us too, right? So, how do we help each other?”

Five gave them his shark-tooth grin.

“I want to know what you know about the Apocalypse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter ended up with a lot more Hazel and Agnes than I’d originally planned, but the more I wrote them the more I got into the groove of it. I genuinely love writing them both and writing from the POV of a disillusioned time traveling hitman who appreciates life’s simple pleasures is so my brand of dark humor.  
Most of the dialogue that doesn’t involve Vanya, Klaus, or Dave has pretty much been lifted straight from the show but the order of everything has been changed. So from an outside perspective it looks like the Apocalypse is still on. The Commission doesn’t know that Vanya has time traveled and mastered her powers and had a great lesbian awakening. All they know is she called Harold Jenkins, nailed her audition, and then later met him in a coffee shop, just as she was originally supposed to. So as far as they are concerned the show is still on.  
I never bought the theory that Five was the one who shot Dave, it doesn’t fit with the events of the show, especially since the commission isn’t aware of what Klaus and Vanya have done.


	6. What Is Love?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave meets the only sane member of the Hargreeves family: Grace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn’t really an update; it’s basically a self-indulgent interlude that didn’t fit anywhere else. I don’t know if anyone but me will care about this chapter or the next one, which will be from Eudora’s POV, but I’ve already decided to put them in anyway so you all will just have to indulge me :)

**Dave**

Dave was worried about Klaus. He was clearly suffering through withdrawal but making no effort to get drugs, instead he kept drinking water and wiping away the sweat when he thought no one was looking.

Unsure what else to do Dave gently rubbed Klaus's back as he dry heaved into the toilet.

“Are you sure you want to do this baby? I’m all for making healthier choices but quitting out of the blue can’t be good for you either.”

Klaus only gave a hysterical little laugh and rested his head on the cold porcelain of the tank.

“You probably right,” he finally managed a hoarse whisper. “But I’ve never been one to half ass anything.”

Dave was still trying to think of what to say to that when there was a knock on the bathroom door and Dave looked up to see Diego standing in the door-frame looking awkward and unsure.

“You look like shit,” Diego said with all the sympathy of someone who has told you not to do something stupid and stood back to watch you do the stupid thing they warned you not to do, which is to say: none at all.

Klaus didn’t even open his eyes, just flipped his brother off and kept himself hunched over the toilet bowl.

“Whadya want Diego?” Klaus asked with this eye screwed shut, missing the scowl Dave was giving his brother.

“Do you know where Vanya and Five went; I can’t find them anywhere,” Diego sounded angry but from the little of him Dave had seen, that seemed to be his default whenever he didn’t feel in control of the situation.

“Mm-hm, they went to blackmail Hazel and Cha-Cha,” Klaus said into the toilet.

Diego looked ready to explode.

“They did what?!”

“There’s no need to yell,” Dave said with a raised eyebrow. “Five sent them a message to meet up if they wanted their Briefcase back and brought a fake one to use as bait. Luther went with them as a bluff and Vanya will kick their asses into next week herself if they try anything.”

“They brought Luther with them? Luther?” Diego asked incredulously.

“I think the bluff was that Spaceboy would space the briefcase into a million tiny pieces if Hazel and Cha-Cha tried to pull anything.”

Diego’s upper lip curls in a silent snarl.

“Five decided to meet up with those lunatics with Luther and Vanya as his back up, and you _ let him? _”

Klaus snorted. “Bold of you to assume I have any say in what that little maniac does. He has never listened to the rest of us; Vanya was the only one ever capable of reining him in and she rarely had the energy to do so.”

“You think the three of them working together is a good idea?”

Oh, for G-d’s sake.

“Well yeah,” Dave said as he continued to rub circles on Klaus’s back. “Apparently those assassins dropped a chandelier on Luther the other day and he just got right back up; they’ll know to take him as a viable threat. Vanya once took out most of an infantry division because she was angry that they almost shot me, whaddya think she’ll do if Hazel and Cha-Cha threaten Five or Luther?”

Diego scowled at him but said nothing, which Dave decided to take as a win.

“They’ll be fine Dee,” Klaus said, straightening up to sit on the toilet. “Five might be a little psycho, but he knows how these people operate and Vanya is more powerful than the rest of us combined. They’ve got it covered, go hang out with that nice cop lady friend of yours, she’s probably wondering what Hargreeves bullshit is going down.”

Diego opened his mouth to say something, changed his mind, snapped it closed and stomped off.

Dave rolled his eyes and turned back to Klaus.

“I think you should lie down for a bit and listen to your music. I’ll make you some tea or something.”

Klaus managed a shaky smile.

“Thanks Dave.”

“I wish you’d told Vanya you were trying to get sober,” Dave said as he helped Klaus stand up and make his way down the hall.

Klaus just made a dismissive noise and flapped his hand.

“She has enough things to worry about right now, her own powers, the Apocalypse, Five, the list just goes on. She doesn’t need to worry about me right now.”

Dave frowned but didn’t argue further, just helped Klaus into bed and handed him his headset from a pile of junk by the door.

“I’ll be back soon, shout if you need me.”

“Thanks Dave,” Klaus said with a smile before turning his music up and closing his eyes.

* * *

Dave managed to make his way down the hall to the stairs, hoping he was heading in the right direction. Three minutes and only one wrong turn later found Dave rummaging through the cabinets of the enormous kitchen in search of tea bags, thinking that whoever had organized the pantry must have a really weird organization system or a twisted sense of humor when a cheerful voice spoke up just behind him.

“Hello there, what can I help you with?”

Dave yelped and spun around clutching a box of pasta to his chest and looked at the woman who had entered so silently and spoken so suddenly.

She was blonde, with a hairstyle and outfit that looked like it had been ripped from a Sears and Roebuck catalogue circa 1955. She was beautiful with picture perfect makeup, brilliant white teeth, and an almost vacant smile; there was only one possibility really.

“You must be Grace,” Dave said, trying to will his heartbeat back under control. 

Grace continued to smile at him.

“Yes, and you must be Dave. Pogo told me about you,” Grace said when Dave frowned in confusion.

“Ah...right,” Dave said awkwardly, trying hard not to fidget under Grace’s gaze. Whenever Klaus and Vanya had described her they had made her feel very human. Standing in front of her now, Dave could only think she felt exactly like the too smart AIs from his science fiction paperbacks.

Grace tilted her head slightly to the left, considering him.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” She said again.

“Um...yes,” Dave said hesitantly, unsure of how much she knew about Klaus’s drug use. “Klaus is going through withdrawal and I was trying to find some tea to help settle his stomach.”

Something changed in Grace’s face at that, she was still smiling but it seemed...almost sad and infinitely more human.

“Ginger tea is good for stomach upsets, I’ll make it, just sit down for a moment Dave.”

And with that she spun around with a flare of her skirt and began bustling around the kitchen, pulling an apron off a hook and over her clothes with one smooth motion, leaving Dave with nothing to do but follow her instructions and sit at the table.

He was still sitting there, trying to think of something to say when Grace spoke again.

“I wanted to thank you,” Grace said from where she was watching the kettle on the stove with her back to Dave.

Dave jerked with surprise.

“Thank me? For doing what exactly?”

“For helping my children while they were in your time. Pogo said they were in the past for a while, long enough for Vanya to develop her powers.”

“You knew,” Dave asked. “You knew about Vanya’s powers?”

“I did,” Grace acknowledged with a tilt of her head. “Mister Hargreeves did not allow for me to tell any of the children what was being kept from her.”

Her tone didn’t really change, but at the same time Dave felt sure that Grace was angry, really truly angry about what she had been forced to be part of.

“You love her,” Dave whispered in surprise.

Grace turned to look at him at that.

“Did you doubt it?”

“You’re a machine,” Dave said carefully, not wanting to upset his future mother-in-law. “A machine built by a cruel and unscrupulous man. A person has to wonder.”

Grace doesn’t look offended; Dave wonders if that’s because she _ can’t. _

“I was made to take care of them. Vanya first back when she was Number Seven because she was the one Mister Hargreeves needed me most help with, then the others shortly after that. They are the most precious part of my life; I would do anything for them, is that not what love is?”

“I suppose so,” Dave said as the kettle began to whistle, wondering what it said about this family that a machine gave them the dignity of names when their father did not.

Grace gave him a satisfied little smile and turned around to pour the boiling water into a waiting mug.

“I’m glad they found you Dave. I haven’t seen Klaus this happy since he was quite young and Vanya deserved a chance to grow beyond the confines Mister Hargreeves put around her. I'm glad she got the chance to. I’m glad you were there to be a friend when she needed one.”

“It wasn’t---I just,” Dave wasn’t sure what to say to that so he cut himself off and stared at his hands until he heard the soft click of Grace’s heels as she made her way over to him.

“Why don’t you take this up to Klaus while I get dinner started,” Grace said with the same sad little smile she’d had earlier, in her outstretched hands there’s a tray with the steaming tea and a small plate with small bumpy crackers. “Vanya, Five and Luther should be back soon and they might be hungry but Klaus can’t usually eat much while he’s going through withdrawal.”

Dave stood and smoothly took the tray out of Grace’s hands.

“Thank you very much ma’am,” Dave said promptly, because while Grace was undoubtedly a machine Miriam Katz didn’t raise him to be rude.

“Please,” she said with a smile. “Call me Grace.”

“Thank you Grace,” Dave said immediately a smile forming of its own accord on his lips.

Grace nodded, apparently satisfied and turned around again and began to prepare dinner for the others, leaving Dave to carry the tray back up the stairs to Klaus’s room.

Klaus was curled up on his side with his eyes screwed shut and his hands clapped over his ears. As Dave got closer he could hear Klaus muttering to himself, an endless stream of ‘shutupshutupshutupshutup’ that made Dave’s heart ache. Setting the tray down on a small desk off to the side Dave reached out to gently touch Klaus’s hand.

The moment Dave touched him Klaus’s eyes snapped open and he jerked in surprise but immediately relaxed as soon as he realized who was standing in front of him.

“Hey Dave,” Klaus said as he pushed his headset down to hang around his neck. “You find the kitchen okay? This place is a fricken maze.”

Dave nodded. “I did, and I only made one wrong turn and I’ve got you tea and crackers.”

Dave maneuvered to sit on the edge of Klaus’s bed and pulled the tray into his lap as Klaus moved to sit up.

“Oh, rice crackers! Smart call; I can never keep anything else down while I’m detoxing. How’d you know?” Klaus asked as he took a careful sip of tea.

“I didn’t,” Dave said with a smile. “Your mom found me searching helplessly for teabags and took pity on me and my culinary exploits.” 

“Ah,” Klaus said nodding sagely. “Its best to let mom handle anything kitchen related; the rest of us would probably set the kitchen on fire or something. I think Vanya was the only one who learned how to cook, unless you count Diego’s cookie baking, or my bar-tending skills.”

“What, feeding yourselves didn’t make it into your child soldier training?” Dave asked sarcastically.

Klaus snorted so violently he almost choked on his tea.

“No, it most certainly did not. How was she, by the way?” Klaus asked, snagging one of the crackers and nibbling carefully at the edge. “Pogo said she would be fine but...” Klaus trailed off and Dave immediately thought of how little Klaus and Vanya trusted the old ape.

“She seemed fine,” Dave rushed to assure him. “I mean, I’ve never met her before so I’m not sure I’m the best judge but she made the tea for you and got the crackers when I told her you were going through withdrawal.”

Klaus nodded and took another sip of his tea.

Dave bit his lip and considered his next words carefully.

“I was surprised,” Dave began slowly feeling Klaus’s eyes on him. “By how...human she was at the same time as being so obviously...not. Sorry if that sounds terrible.”

“Dave,” Klaus said with raised eyebrows. “I would be more concerned if you _ hadn’t _ noticed she wasn’t human.”

“I think she likes me,” Dave said, giving Klaus a small hopeful smile. “She asked me to call her Grace.”

Klaus returned the smile, but about halfway through it became a yawn and then Dave was yawning and it suddenly occurred to Dave that they’d been up for over twenty-four hours and they were probably going to crash soon.

“Maybe we should take a nap while the others have Hazel and Cha-Cha distracted,” Dave said through a yawn.

“That’s,” Klaus paused to yawn again, “Probably a good idea. Ben wake me up if something happens.” Klaus said to a patch of air near the door before pulling Dave to his chest and settling into a more comfortable position.

For Dave it feels like no sooner did he close his eyes then Klaus was shaking him awake.

“C’mon Dave, Ben says the others are all back.”

By the time they meet Allison on the stairs Dave can hear shouting, but it's not till they make it to the mezzanine that Dave realizes its Luther and Diego yelling at each other.

Vanya is sitting slumped over at the bar with her chin in her hand watching her brothers argue with the air of someone who is aware that the situation is going to devolve into a fist fight but is too tired to care anymore. Five is behind the bar and appears to be...making a margarita. Okie dokie then.

The only person in the room Dave doesn’t recognize is a hispanic woman with a gun on her belt and a dangerous look on her face and apparently whatever argument Luther and Diego are having is the last straw for her.

“If nobody tells me what the hell is going on here, I swear to god I will arrest everyone in this room!”

_ Ah, well. At least no one is dead. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment telling me what you think of Dave meeting his boyfriend’s robot mommy. Also is anyone else happy to see Eudora? I am so happy to have someone sensible to write besides Dave.


	7. To it's reckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eudora is just...so done with all of the Hargreeves bullshit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eudora is clearly too good for Diego and therefor too good to die in a seedy motel room so I have fixed that problem for y'all. Enjoy!

**Eudora**

Eudora Patch had wanted to be a police officer ever since she was seven years old and Officer Hernandez had walked into her second grade classroom to teach them about how and when to ask for a policeman's help. It was the first time she had seen someone who looked like her wearing a badge and he talked about how it was his job to keep people safe. She had decided then and there that she was going to be a police officer and keep her neighborhood safe.

By the time she was twenty and entering the police academy after two years of criminal justice and intro to law classes she had a more complicated view of the situation. She knew that a significant number of her colleagues weren’t interested in helping people so much as they were interested in getting the chance to intimidate people with a badge and gun but she was still determined to make this work.

She was going to be the one people came to when they needed someone they could trust, for the kids who felt trapped into making bad decisions to get a second chance.

The first time she met Diego Hargreeves he was arguing with an instructor over what constitutes probable cause. Looking back, that probably should have been a bigger red flag than it was.

The thing about Diego Hargreeves was that, while he did want to help people, he was unable to conceive of a way to do that without violence. In his mind any problem could be solved if you threw enough knives at it or hit it hard enough, and anyone insisting that he be able to justify his actions was a hindrance.

And yes, dealing with child molesters and smug pimps often made Eudora what to reach for the nearest blunt instrument, there  _ had _ to be some accountability or else they were just bullies keeping people in line with fear. As much as Eudora wanted people to listen to her, she didn’t want to be a tyrant.

It was this difference of opinion, that rules were in place for a good reason, that caused more fights between Eudora and Diego than anything else. It was also what was currently driving Eudora’s blood pressure up.

After giving statements at the station Diego had taken off to check and see if his siblings had made it to his apartment, promising to call her as soon as possible. Nine hours later and Eudora was sitting at her desk silently fuming that she had ever found the reckless idiot attractive.

To distract herself she went over the APB on the frustratingly vague descriptions of the gunmen that she and Diego had been shot at by. The only silver lining was that the casings matched the other crime scenes so they at the very least had a solid case if they could catch the two.

On the other hand, there had been no patients admitted in the past ten hours that matched the descriptions of Diego’s siblings and Eudora was starting to get worried that the two of them had been recaptured and now were being tortured somewhere else.

It was therefore completely understandable that Eudora almost knocked her phone to the floor in her haste to answer it when it finally rang just before three in the afternoon.

“Detective Patch,” she gritted out more briskly than she would have normally.

“It’s me,” came Diego’s familiar voice from the end of the line sounding stressed and irritated but not strained with panic the way it had been earlier.

“Did your siblings call you?” Eudora asked, hoping like hell Diego’s siblings had found somewhere safe to hunker down and that was why no one had seen them yet.

“No, I mean they’re fine, they went to the Academy, and they’re fine but this situation just got full on Hargreeves bullshit crazy and Vanya, Five, and Luther just went to confront those lunatics from last night.”

Eudora felt her heart stop for a moment;  _ oh Dios mío they were _ ** _ all _ ** _insane_ _ . _

“Wait a minute, your sister who is approximately the size of a Raggedy Anne doll and your brother who is stuck in his 13 year old body went to confront a pair of homicidal maniacs and you waited to call me until now?!” Eudora hissed into her receiver, glancing up to make sure no one was paying too close attention to her.

“I didn’t know what they were planning on doing until they had already left!” Diego growled down the line at her. “If I had known what they were planning I would have come along!”

Eudora snorted; that she could believe.

“Did they at least get medical treatment?” She asked, rubbing her forehead with her free hand, trying to stave off the inevitable headache she could already feel forming.

“No, they were fine,” Diego said so dismissively that Eudora was momentarily taken aback.

“They were tortured, Diego,” Eudora said incredulously. “For about twenty hours if what you told me before is correct. What do you mean they’re _ fine _ ?”

Diego snorted.

“Apparently they stole a time machine from Hazel and Cha-Cha and used it to spend eleven months in 1968.”

Eudora froze for a moment and pulled the phone away from her ear to stare at it in disbelief before bringing it back to her ear.

“Diego,” Eudora began slowly. “Where are you?”

“I’m in the phone booth next to the Chinese restaurant on Chestnut, why?” 

“Don’t move,” Eudora commanded, already standing up from her desk and reaching for her car keys. “I’ll be there in less than ten minutes.”

* * *

  
  


Diego was sitting on the curb looking for all the world like an angry child when Eudora pulled into the parking lot seven minutes later, scowling at the ground refusing to look up as she parked the car and made her way towards him.

Fine. If that was how he wanted to play it...

“So did those two give you a concussion or do you want to tell me what in the hell is really going on?”

Diego snorted but didn’t look up at her.

“Well apparently after Five left he joined a group of time traveling assassins that are hellbent on ending the world on April first and may or may not be planning on using Vanya to do it.”

Eudora looked heavenward for a moment. 

_ Oh boy, where to start with that sentence? _

“Vanya? The one who wrote the book? Is that why they abducted her? They thought she could cause the end of the world?”

“Apparently,” Diego said sarcastically. “Little Number Seven does have powers after all. Isn’t that great?! She can blow things up with her mind and Sir Reginald Hargreeves decided the best course of action with her would be to drug her up to her eyeballs and tell her she didn’t have powers!”

Eudora blinked in surprise. She hadn’t ever met Vanya Hargreeves, hadn’t even read her book until after she had broken up with Diego. (And hadn’t that been a rollercoaster. Eudora had been simultaneously horrified by her ex’s upbringing and unsurprised by the distance his sister claimed all of them tried to put between each other. The book tallied completely with what Eudora herself had observed about Diego’s inability to regulate his emotions and the difficulty he had forming meaningful relationships.) Eudora had felt sorry for the children who had been forced to become child soldiers for Reginald Hargreeves, but she had also felt sorry for the little girl who had grown up surrounded by children constantly telling her they were better and more important than she was. Vanya Hargreeves had made clear from everything from the title to the very last sentence of her book that she had always fallen short in everyone's estimations of her.

Eudora had a hard time imagining someone as power hungry as Reginald Hargreeves purposefully handicapping a potential soldier for his own personal army but now wasn’t really the time to be arguing semantics.

“So let me get this straight,” Eudora said slowly. “Your sister who wrote a book about being the only ordinary member of your family can blow things up with her mind and time traveling assassins want to use her power to end the world?”

Diego pulled out one of his knives and began twirling it between his fingers.

“According to Five anyway,” Diego said sullenly.

“Five, who is currently meeting up with those very same assassins to get more intel along with the woman who could blow up the world?” Eudora asked.

“Uh-huh,” Diego grunted without looking at her.

Eudora pursed her lips in thought for a moment before she nodded to herself and stood, dusting off the seat of her pants as she did so.

“Alright,get up Diego,” she said when Diego made no move to get off the curb. “I need answers and if Five is the one with answers then I am going to speak with Five.”

Diego looked started.

“I--I d-don’t know where they went,” Diego said, stumbling over the first part of the sentence and scowling at the ground as he did.

“So? They’re staying at your old house right? We’ll just wait for them there. Now get up and get in the damn car Diego.”

* * *

As luck would have it, Eudora was just parking her car across the street from the Academy when a shiny black classic car came barreling down the street and screeched to a halt directly in front of the gates. As soon as it came to a stop and the engine was cut, a tiny brunette dressed for a disco climbed out of the front seat. A moment later a teenager in school boy shorts and knee socks appeared next to her in a flash of blue leaving a man with massive shoulders to try and wriggle out of the backseat.

“Where the hell have you been?!” Diego was shouting and advancing on his siblings before Eudora could even open her mouth.

_ Oh wonderful, this is just what we need: a fight in the middle of the street. _

Diego’s siblings seem mostly unmoved by his outburst, Five barely glancing over his shoulder to see who was shouting before rolling his eyes and Vanya just raised her eyebrows and waved at Diego. The giant (Luther if Eudora’s guess was right) seemed the most perturbed.

“We needed more intel,” he said, his voice strangely soft for such a big man. “Talking to Hazel and Cha-Cha seemed like our best lead.”

“Oh and you think you should be making that call?” Diego asked as he stalked across the street to catch up to the others who were already heading inside. “Weren’t you drowning your sorrows a few hours ago, Number One?”

Eudora grabbed Diego’s shoulder and yanked him back. He’d told her once when he was more than a little buzzed on alcohol about how it felt to grow up with numbers. Learning that even hurricanes and pets were given more dignity than they had been. How their numbers had been another way for Reginald to hurt them.

“I do not need you picking a fight right now Diego,” Eudora hissed at him as she pushed her way past him and Luther up the stairs and into the mansion.

The three of them hadn’t gone far, just into a room off the main entryway, Five and Vanya over at the bar while Luther stood awkwardly to the side.

Vanya gave her a smile when she came in and Eudora’s immediate thought was that she looked nothing like the portrait of her on the flyleaf of her book. The printed image had looked washed out and melancholy; the woman in front of her was all but glowing with mischief.

“Hello again, it's nice to see you when I’m not covered in sweat and blood,” Vanya said with a smile. “Klaus and I are both so grateful for the rescue.”

Eudora raised her eyebrows; Vanya Hargreeves did not look like she'd been tortured for hours on end the day before. She looked...really cute actually.

Five looked her over consideringly, and yeah Eudora could believe that this was an adult stuck in a teenager’s body.

“She’s the one that saved you and Klaus?” Five asked his sister while still looking at Eudora.

“I am,” she said, squaring her shoulders and looking at the child that was really a renegade time traveling assassin.

“You must be good at what you do to keep Diego from doing incredibly stupid things all day long,” Five said dryly.

Eudora opened her mouth to argue that Diego had been instrumental in fighting the two assassins at the motel but before she could speak Diego’s shouting voice could be heard calling Luther a hairy ape. Eudora looked Five dead in the eye as she spoke.

“You have no idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next: Allison! As always please please please leave a comment if you liked it as they are my single biggest motivation to write!


	8. Pretty Voices Telling Ugly Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison POV and a cliffhanger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, just an FYI, I won't normally update this quickly but I had most of this written already so... TA-DA!

**Allison**

Allison Hargreeves had the phone in a white knuckled grip as she considered what she might say to her ex-husband if he would deign to answer her call.

_ Hello Patrick, the world almost ended because I robbed my sister of a fundamental part of herself but she has it back now and I need to talk to Claire because I need to know I haven’t damaged her the way I have Vanya. _

_ Yeah, that was a definite _ ** _ no_ ** _ . _

After she’d returned to the Academy with Vanya, Allison and Luther had gone up to the greenhouse where Luther had once set up a surprise hideaway for Allison and they’d talked.

They’d talked about how as children they’d both wanted praise from their father so badly they’d been willing to do terrible things for a terrible man and now they both had to live with those choices. And no it wasn’t fair that they’d been abused as children but that didn’t negate the decisions they’d made as adults.

Luther had asked her about Claire, about what she was like and it was all Allison could do to keep herself from crying as she spoke about her daughter.

After they had left the attic, Allison had gone into her childhood bedroom and looked around at the trappings of the person she had been. Her walls her practically a shrine to herself and the room itself was filled with every glamorous or glitzy thing she had managed to collect over the years.

That in and of itself wasn’t so bad, embarrassing maybe, but not bad. Walking past the closet-like room Vanya had been squashed in as a child made it obvious that Allison’s obedience was being purchased and she’d willfully ignored that her entire life. Convinced that she was better than everyone else, more important, more extraordinary and that was why she deserved a bigger room. Looking back Allison could only think of one thing she hadn’t used her Rumors to achieve and that was her daughter. And look how that worked out for her.

Allison carefully placed the phone back in its cradle and was just staring at the wall, unsure of what to do next when Diego stomped by.

“Did you know Five, Luther, and Vanya left to confront Hazel and Cha-Cha, or was I the only one they left out of the loop?” He asked through gritted teeth.

Allison felt her heart stutter in her chest.

“They _ what?! _” She gasped in a much higher voice than normal.

Diego grimaced.

“Just the two of us then, they told Klaus and Dave but not us. Great. Perfect.” He hissed and headed towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Allison asked in a voice that verged on hysterical.

“Out,” Diego said shortly. “I need to think.”

Allison flinched as he slammed the door behind him and left her standing by herself in the empty hallway of her childhood home. Unsure of what else to do she wandered back upstairs into the parlour and sat down on the couch.

Luther hadn’t told her he was going with Five and Vanya. That stung. Five and Vanya hadn’t told her where they were going either but that at least felt familiar. As children the two of them had always been in each others pockets, Vanya being the only one Five would let near him while he was working, and Five being the only one to give Vanya his undivided attention.

Allison flinched as she suddenly remembered wishing, about a week after he’d left, that Five would come back soon, not because she missed him, but because Vanya was trying to spend more time with the rest of them and Allison had found it irritating.

Dear god she’d been a horrible sister. No wonder Vanya had written that book. No wonder she and Five were sticking together now, Five might have been an asshole in general but Vanya had always escaped the worst of his barbs, and she was the one who missed him the most. Now that he was back Vanya didn’t really need Allison. 

Allison wasn’t sure how long she’d sat under the judgmental gaze of her painted teenage self there feeling sorry for herself but suddenly she could smell roast beef with potatoes and carrots. Allison blinked; there was only one person in this house who could cook like that: Mom.

Allison flew down the stairs and skidded to a halt as she entered the kitchen, Mom was wearing her apron over her powder blue dress and she was humming as she worked.

“Mom?” Allison asked hesitantly.

“Hello dear,” Grace said with a smile. “Are you hungry? Dinner will be ready in a little while but I can get you a snack if you’d like something now.”

Allison swallowed back a sob and walked over to wrap her arm around Grace who immediately hugged her back. Allison hadn’t even realized she’d started crying until Grace pulled back to dab at her cheeks with a corner or her apron.

“What’s wrong dear?” 

And Allison started crying even harder at that; mom’s voice was exactly the same as it always had been: calm, measured, reassuring with just a hint of concern to make you doubt you were talking to a machine.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do Mom,” Allison finally managed in a shaky whisper. “Luther and I went up to the attic earlier, went to see the little tent we’d set up as children and I thought...” Allison’s voice trailed off for a moment, but she shook her head and continued. “But he left with Five and Vanya and none of them bothered to tell me what they were doing. And Patrick hates me and doesn’t want to let me near my daughter and god what if he’s right?”

Allison turned huge fearful eyes to Grace.

“What if I can’t be around people without trying to take away their choices, I’ve done it to everyone, my whole life is based on Rumors and it's a house of cards just waiting to crumble around me and I still don’t know that I wouldn’t do it to Claire again if I was stressed enough. I’m a bad mother and I don’t know what I’m supposed to _ do _.”

And with that Allison broke down completely and began crying into Grace’s shoulder.

Grace, composed as ever, just reaches up and begins rubbing soothing circles on Allison’s back as if she were still a child Claire’s age and not a woman just months shy of her 30th birthday.

Grace held her through her breakdown, until her sobs became soft cries and then petered out entirely. Only then did Grace pull back to look Allison in the eye.

“What you do now, is you try again Allison. You try and be a better mother, a better sister, and you let the people you hurt forgive you at their own pace. They are not obligated to make you feel better about what you have done Allison. Your husband may still be angry but from what it sounds like Vanya holds you no ill will for what we both had a hand in doing.”

Allison shook her head before Grace could finish speaking.

“You didn’t have a choice Mom. You couldn’t say no to what Dad ordered.”

Grace cocked her head.

“Could you? At age four, were you prepared to say ‘no’ to your father?”

Allison flinched but said nothing.

“I wasn’t following orders when I Rumored Claire,” Allison said, the shame clawing its way up her throat into her voice.

“No, you weren’t,” Grace agreed. “And you are going to have to be patient with your husband.”

“Ex-husband,” Allison muttered under her breath.

“Ex-husband,” Grace acknowledged with a small nod. “He is worried about the well being of his child because you gave him cause to be. You have proved to be quick to use your Rumors when you want something, even when it means hurting someone else. You convinced yourself that since she was being disobedient it was okay to take away your daughter’s will. You need to work on that Allison dear, or Patick will have been right to keep Claire from you.”

Allison sucked in a startled breath and looked at Grace in open-mouthed shock. She felt like she’d been punched in the chest; not once in the twenty-five years Grace had taken care of them had she ever said something that critical or bluntly honest. But it seemed she wasn’t done yet.

“So you have to keep trying to be a better person, then you might be given the chance to be a better mother. For now maybe you can help me with dinner, the others might be hungry when they get back.”

And with a swirl of her skirts Grace turned around and plucked a clean glass from the open shelves and began filling it with tap water.

“Drink this,” she said holding out to Allison once it was filled. “You’ll get a headache if you don’t replenish your fluids dear.”

Allison stared at the glass in her hand and thought about what Grace had said.

“Do you really think Vanya has forgiven me? She says she’s not mad but...” Allison trailed off awkwardly.

Grace just tilted her head thoughtfully.

“I haven’t seen Vanya yet, but Pogo tells me she is so angry with him that she won’t look him in the eye, yet she spent the entire morning with you without complaint. It sounds like she doesn’t hold you responsible for what happened and wants to be closer to you than you were as children. You’ll have to ask her when she gets back, now drink your water before you get a headache.”

Allison drank two glasses of water before Grace would let her start to set the table. Allison was still mulling over what Grace had said it took her a moment to realize that she had been given the breakfast crockery and Grace was setting the serving bowls on the kitchen table.

“Are we eating down here?” Allison asked in confusion.

“Of course dear,” Grace said with a smile. “You all prefer to eat down here and it makes no sense to bring everything upstairs if we don’t know when the others will be back. This way we can keep a plate warm in the oven for them whenever they arrive.” 

Allison was just setting the forks down when she heard the front door slam open and shouting start up immediately.

Grace merely glanced upwards and smiled.

“It sounds like the others are back, why don’t you go upstairs and let them know dinner is ready whenever they would like to eat.”

Allison certainly didn’t need to be told twice, she ran out of the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time. She’d just reached the second level when she almost runs into Klaus who was coming down the stairs with Dave at his heels. The two of them hang a left and head to the mezzanine to watch but Allison races down the main staircase following the sound of shouting.

“After everything that’s happened you think you can just disappear without telling the rest of us?” Diego was screaming at the top of his lungs making the woman next to him look like she was debating the merits of hitting him over the head with the nearest blunt instrument.

Allison has no idea who this woman is but she’ll worry about that later; right now Allison wants to see her siblings so she slips into the room just as Luther starts mumbling a response.

Luther who was standing off to the side with a constipated look on his face and his arms folded across his chest eyes cutting to Vanya, who was sitting at the bar looking tired and bored, and Five, who was flitting around behind her...mixing a drink. They’re all alive, maybe not well if Five’s drink mixing is any indication, but they’re alive. Allison feels like she can breathe again.

“Allison,” Luther says her name so softly she almost misses it over Diego’s continued bitching, which seems to mostly directed at Five.

Allison smiles at Luther but before she can say anything the woman next to Diego reaches a breaking point with Hargreeves family bullshit.

“If nobody tells me what the hell is going on here, I swear to god I will arrest everyone in this room!”

Allison blinks and turns to look at the woman standing in the doorway with her badge and gun hooked to her belt. She’s about their age, wearing sensible shoes and the tired expression of someone who has spent too much time with a Hargreeves. This must be the Detective Patch Diego mentioned earlier.

Before anyone else can answer Five jerks his head around from where he’s dumping ingredients into a blender.

“Time travelers attempting to start the apocalypse. We’re pretty sure we know how it starts though so we’ve got it handled; if you want to arrest Diego we won’t stop you.”

Vanya just sighed tiredly and gave Five a _ look _ but it isn’t quite as impressive as the arched eyebrow Detective Patch is giving Five.

“What makes you think you’re not going to be arrested too?” Patch asked dryly as Five pours out two margaritas.

Five just raises his eyebrows and then Jumps into the space next to Vanya, handing her one of the margaritas.

“You’d have to catch me first,” Five tells Patch smugly and from where Allison is standing she can see Patch roll her eyes.

“I’m sure that will be embarrassing for both of us, how about we skip it and get straight into whatever the hell is going on with these...time travelers,” Patch says the last two words like they are physically painful for her to say. Allison can relate.

Five seems to be considering what to say when Klaus speaks up from the mezzanine.

“Those creepers with the masks who kidnapped us had a briefcase time machine and were here to kill Five but settled for me and Vanya, and when you rescued us I stole the briefcase and opened it and got the two of us sucked into 1968 for eleven months but we’re back now and Vanya has her powers under control so ha-ha! The apocalypse has been averted!...we think.”

Allison thought she saw Patch’s lips twitch before her face smooths back into an impassive mask.

“Hello Klaus,” she says calmly. “I’m glad to see you’re alright; I was concerned when we couldn’t find you after you escaped the motor lodge.”

Klaus smiled brightly down at her.

“That is so nice of you, but V and I are doing great. All healed up from our little torture session.”

“It’s true,” Vanya piped up from where she was sipping her margarita. “It sounds insane, but no more insane than the Eiffel Tower being a missile or Dr.Terminal’s whole shtick.”

Vanya waved her hand as if to encompass Dr. Terminal’s whole shtick as Allison shivered. God she was glad that man was dead.

“There are time travelers trying to use me to start the apocalypse, but we have an advantage,” Vanya said with a smile and turned to look at Five who set down his own margarita to look Patch in the eye.

“We have one of their briefcases, Vanya and I can use it to travel to headquarters and destroy the heart of the organization. The field agents aren’t informed about the details of their missions so we can probably assume once we get rid of the higher ups we’ll probably be in the clear.”

“Probably?”

“Probably?”

“Probably?”

Diego, Allison, and Detective Patch spoke at once.

Five rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to no doubt eviscerate them for doubting his brilliance, but Vanya rested a hand on his arm and spoke instead.

"Hazel and Cha-Cha are just two small parts of an organization dedicated to their version of the timeline, which includes the apocalypse Five got stuck in as a teenager. If we want to create a future without that event we are going to have to get rid of the Temps Commission.”

Everyone started speaking at once, speaking over each other with their arguments and Allison almost missed the quiet “Hello?” coming from the main hall.

Bemused Allison turned to see a confused looking Leonard Peabody looking around the main hall as he made his way towards them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOOH! I'm evil with that cliffhanger! What do ya think is going to happen next! Leave a comment down below telling me what you thought, how you felt, what you liked, etc.


	9. Liar Liar Pants On Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Idiot plot: none of this would be a problem if you weren't all making stupid choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not crazy about this chapter but I just couldn't leave it in my drafts folder any longer.

**Klaus**

“Vanya? I got your message, what’s going on? Why did you want to meet up here?”

Klaus couldn’t see who was speaking but he didn’t recognize the voice floating up from the doorway. He was saved having to ask the question when Vanya’s head jerked towards the door.

“Leonard?”

Klaus frowned and shot a quick look at Dave; as far as he knew Vanya had told this guy to steer clear until everything settled down, why would she have changed her mind about bringing him in so suddenly, without telling them first?

Turning back to look down at the lounge Klaus saw Vanya’s brow wrinkle in confusion.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t send you a message.” Vanya turned to look at Five in askance, clearly hoping Five hadn’t pulled her friend into this.

Vanya had mentioned her friend before, had admired his drive to learn an instrument as an adult to honor his father, and while Klaus didn’t empathize with the sentiment it was nice to know that some people had good relationships with their parents.

Downstairs Vanya had stood up and started walking towards the door with a concerned look on her face.

“Did you get a note? The people trying to hurt my family sometimes send notes,” Vanya was saying as Leonard walked into the parlor.

Klaus jerked in surprise; behind Leonard was a young woman with a slit throat and look of absolute loathing on her face as she glared at Leonard's back.

“I did, actually. It said I should meet you here, is everything okay?”

Behind the young woman was a man with half his skull caved in glaring at Leonard like he would like nothing better than to kill him with his bare hands.

Klaus couldn’t breathe, what in the hell was going on?

Five Jumped next to Vanya to peer into Leonard’s face them pulled back disappointed.

“You don’t know anyone who needs a prosthetic eye do you Leonard?” Five asked with all his usual tact.

“No?” Leonard said hesitantly.

“His name is Harold,” the dead man growled.

“What?” Klaus asked, his voice little more than a shaky exhale but it got the attention of the ghosts downstairs and Dave and Ben standing next to him.

“You can see us,” the dead woman said looking at Klaus with hard angry eyes. She must be a new ghost to still have so much of her sanity left.

Klaus nodded carefully. Eyes cutting to Leonard (Harold?) as he took another step towards his sister.

“Who are you,” Ben leaned forward on the railing to better see the ghosts downstairs. “Who is that guy with my sister?”

“I don’t know what his name is,” the woman snarled, “But my name is Helen Cho and he murdered me and stuffed my body in his attic which is basically a hate shrine to the Umbrella Academy!”

Klaus almost choked on his own spit.

“Wait, who are you,” Diego asked the living man in an incredulous voice.

Vanya threw Diego a dirty look.

“This is Leonard, he’s my newest student.”

“His name is Harold Jenkins; I should know, I’m his father!” Shouted the dead man still glaring at his back.

“Leonard, I’m so sorry you got dragged into my family bullshit, I was trying to keep you safe.”

“He was born the same day as the rest of you and he wanted to be part of your little Academy, when he was turned down the little brat killed me with a hammer!”

_ Oh god, too many people in the room.Too much noise, oh god please not now! _

“Klaus?” Dave leaned close and whispered into Klaus’s ear. “What do you see?”

Klaus swallowed his fear and reached out for Dave’s hand.

“Ghosts,” he gasped out before squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath.

“Hey Vanya, you didn’t tell me your new friend was a Mr. Charles.”

Everyone stopped to stare at him in complete confusion, everyone except Vanya and Dave who had both frozen as soon as the words left Klaus’s mouth.

“What are you talking about?” Leonard/Harold asked him with his brows wrinkled in confusion.

Diego rolled his eyes, “It’s Klaus; there’s no telling what he--”

BANG.

The intricately carved bronze disc that had been in the parlor for as long as Klaus could remember made a loud clang as it bounced off the back of Leonard/Harold’s head and fell to the floor. Leonard followed it a moment later.

“What the hell, Vanya?” Diego shrieked from his corner, staring at his sister who’s eyes were still glowing with their power.

Vanya ignored him and turned to Klaus.

_ “What did you see? Oh god Klaus what’s going on?!” _

**Five**

Five felt himself freeze; when Vanya had tossed Hazel and Cha-Cha aside like ragdolls she had let the white glow fall from her eyes immediately, reaching for his hand as they booked it back to the car. Now, standing over Leonard’s unconscious body her eyes remained that unnerving icy bluish white.

“What did you see? Oh god Klaus what’s going on?!” Vanya sounded almost hysterical as she looked up at Klaus with terrified eyes.

Klaus didn’t look much better; he was pale and shaky and was taking in great gulping breaths of air while Dave rubbed circles on his back.

Diego’s cop friend had one hand resting lightly on her gun and if Five weren’t so protective of his family he would be more impressed with her subtlety in the movement. As it was, he prepared to Jump in case he needed to disarm her quickly.

“Does anyone what to tell me who this guy is and why you just knocked him out?” Patch asked, her voice tight with irritation.

“I don’t know!” Vanya shrieked, her arms wrapping around herself as the chandelier above her began to shake ominously. “Klaus! What did you _ see?! _”

“Ghosts!” Klaus shrieked and began pointing dramatically at Leonard’s body on the ground.

Five froze; had Vanya killed someone in front of a cop? A cop Diego liked? Shit this could be complicated. Five was flicking through ways to get rid of any evidence of what had happened when Klaus found his voice again.

“Ghosts!” Klaus was still shrieking from the mezzanine pointing dramatically at Leonard’s body. “He’s being haunted by a guy who says he’s his father and his real name is Harold Jenkins and a woman who says her name is Helen and this guy murdered her and stuffed her body in his attic!”

Vanya’s face crumpled in shock and hurt.

“Why would he kill Helen?” Vanya asked, her voice high pitched anxiety as she looked wide-eyed up at Klaus who looked seconds away from running to the nearest liquor cabinet. “He’s never even met her!”

“Did you just say there’s a corpse in this man’s attic?” Patch had one hand resting on her gun, which she still hadn’t yet drawn from its holster.

“Yes!” Klaus shrieked back. “Dead guy says it's his old house and he has the address! Also Harold Jenkins has a record so...” Klaus waved his hand vaguely at Leonard/Harold lying facedown on the floor. “Arrest him or whatever.”

Patch looked a little wide eyed herself as she answered.

“Do you have any proof besides the ghosts, because I--I can’t use that to get a warrant.”

Klaus just blinked at her for a moment before he spun to look at Five.

“Five, how do you feel about breaking into this guy’s house and calling the police to report a dead body in the attic?”

Five stilled in surprise before he felt a wide manic grin split across his face.

**Eudora**

Eudora Patch sat at her desk and wondered how this had become her life. It was nearly midnight and she was waiting for Beaman to bring the file on Harold Jenkins to confirm that he was the same person who had introduced himself to Vanya Hargreeves as Leonard Peabody.

She had only just been able to stop Five from breaking into and disturbing a potential crime scene by telling her captain she’d had an anonymous tip about a body in a house owned by a man who was indeed named Harold Jenkins. (This was of course conveniently leaving out the fact that the potential Jenkins was currently locked up in a sovet era bomb shelter underneath the Hargreeves mansion.) Harold Jenkins who had in fact killed his father with a hammer, and fuck her, in all the time Diego had complained about his siblings she’d never realized the potential golden goose that was Klaus Hargreeves.

To have an interpreter able to interview dead victims and ask if they knew their killer, if they knew where their bodies were buried, or where the murder weapon was stashed would be the dream of any homicide detective who’d ever hit a dead end case.

If it weren’t for the fact that Klaus was visibly uncomfortable just sitting in the bullpen Eudora would have considered inviting Klaus to the interview rooms to see if he could glean any insight on any of the murder investigations they currently had open.

As it was, Klaus and Vanya Hargreeves were sitting huddled together after giving their statements about the masked lunatics who had abducted them and tortured them trying to get info about their missing brother.

“So your anonymous tip was right,” Beaman said as he sauntered by her desk and dropped an open file on top of it. Harold Jenkins’s photo was a dead ringer for the man she’d met in the Hargreeves mansion. 

“There was indeed a body in the attic of that house, guess who the deceased was?” Beaman asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Eudora was pretty sure she knew exactly who the deceased had been but had no reasonable explanation for already knowing who Harold Jenkins had murdered.

“Who?”

“Helen Cho, a violinist who was reported missing the other day and get this; I spoke with management at the orchestra she belongs to and after she went missing they held auditions for her spot and Vanya Hargreeves got it.”

Eudora froze.

“You don’t think...Vanya had anything to do with this, do you?”

Beaman shook his head.

“No, not directly anyway, she went missing when Vanya was being held captive by those crazies in the masks, but Jenkins attic is papered with old images of the Umbrella academy with their eyes gouged out.”

Eudora glanced up and Klaus Hargreeves who had curled up in his seat and put his head in his sister’s lap, her hand stroking gently through his curls as she murmured softly to him.

He had interviewed a murder victim after she had died and described the crime scene to Eudora perfectly and then acted like it was no big deal. Worse, his siblings had acted like it was no big deal. With the exception of Vanya none of the others seemed to consider how exhausting it was talking to people with trauma, never mind the fact that Klaus had single-handedly solved a murder investigation.

“Do you think Jenkins could be working with the weirdos in the masks? They attacked the Academy while Jenkins murdered Vanya’s fellow musician?” Eudora said instead of voicing any of her thoughts on the Hargreeves siblings, looking up to see what Beaman could make of this fucked up scenario they’d had dumped in their laps.

Beaman wrinkled his nose.

“It’s possible I guess,” he said with a frown. “But if he was trying to take out the Hargreeves, why did he bother killing Cho?”

Eudora pursed her lips; she knew why the young woman had been murdered and she couldn’t say it because it was one: crazy, and two: illegal. God help her; she’d become Diego.

“We’ll have to ask him when we find him, do any of the neighbors have anything on this guy?”

“Nothing useful; he’s kept to himself since he got out of prison, but a nosy old lady across the street saw him leave late this afternoon and she says he hasn’t come back yet.”

Eudora thought briefly of the Hargreeves bunker and resolutely says nothing.

“Missing and exploited children still has no leads on the donut shop shooting kid, but hopefully the bullets will be a match to the two who kidnapped Vanya and Klaus and we won’t need a witness.”

“Abducted,” grunted Diego from the shadowy corner where he had been sulking after Eudora banished him from his siblings’ interviews.

“What?” Beaman asked, deeply confused by Diego’s non sequitur.

“They’re both pushing thirty; they weren’t kidnapped, they were abducted,” Diego grumbled.

Eudora snorted. “Because that’s the most pressing distinction,” Eudora muttered as she flipped the file shut before Diego could get a look at the photo. 

Somewhere in the recesses of Eudora’s brain something clicked into place and Eudora suddenly realized what had been sitting in front of her face the entire time.

Five_ -freaking _-Hargreeves was her witness to the donut shop shooting! And none of these assholes thought it worth mentioning! 

Rarely a day had passed that she hadn’t wanted to arrest Diego Hargreeves for something, but today she felt a deep desire to arrest the whole freaking clan, excepting maybe Vanya and Klaus who seemed like borderline reasonable human beings.

Diego opened his mouth to argue but closed it when Eudora pinned him with a glare.

“Is it alright if we go home now?” Vanya Hargreeves soft voice piped up from behind Beaman and the three of them turned to see that she and Klaus had got up from where they’d been sitting and were now gazing at her with big pleading doe eyes that Eudora didn’t trust for a minute.

“We’ll all be on the lookout in case those guys in the masks come back, and you said there’d be a patrol car in the area just in case, and Klaus and I would really like to get back to the others,” Vanya continued with a guileless expression while Klaus gave a mournful expression over her shoulder.

_ How in the fuck did everyone in this damn family have big sad puppy dog eyes? How!? They weren’t even related! _

Diego’s eyes were flicking back and forth between Vanya and Klaus, obviously trying to guess what they were up to and failing miserably.

“Diego, please take your siblings home, they’ve given us all they can and I don’t want you underfoot here.”

They were definitely up to something, and Eudora needed them out of earshot of her captain before she could grill them for details.

As soon as she was able to make excuses to her captain (less than five minutes after the Hargreeves siblings left) Eudora was racing to her car and speeding the entire way to the Umbrella Academy, reaching it just after Diego’s muscle car pulled to a stop ahead of her.

“So you all want to tell me what the hell that was about?” Eudora asked as she slammed her car door shut.

“Do we have a choice?” Diego asked sarcastically as his siblings rolled their eyes.

“Five broke into Leonard’s--Harold’s house,” Vanya corrected herself mid sentence with a shake of her head. “And he found dad’s journal on the seven of us. Ben says there’s a section on my powers and that Harold also had my empty pill bottle in his recycle bin so he’s definitely the one the Commission is using to get me to end the world.”

If Vanya hadn’t looked so upset about what she’d just said Eudora would have thought the tiny woman was screwing with her. As it was Vanya just looked so hurt that Eudora had to fight the urge to scoop the other woman into a hug.

Klaus had no such reservations and threw his gangly limbs around his sister and pulled her close, ignoring her shriek of surprise as she was lifted off the ground.

“C’mon,” Diego said, holding the gate open for them. “Five’s probably getting impatient and we really need to know what Leonard was planning.”

“I’m not letting you torture him,” Eudora said quickly as she turned to join him.

Diego rolled his eyes, but didn’t protest the accusation.

“I don’t think we’ll have to,” Vanya said with a pensive look on her face.

Diego frowned at her.

“What are you planning?” He asked slowly.

A small smile was spreading over Vanya’s face as she reached for the door knob.

“How good is your acting these days, Dee?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crouches over inbox*  
Please dear god leave comments, they are what I live on these days, tell me what you liked, what you didn't what you hope to see next. Tell me you stayed up late to read this or you kept it open in a small window of your computer at work because you just couldn't wait; it means the world to me.


	10. From Emptiness To Melody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya gets some answers that she didn't really want to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’ve never done a Ben POV before and I hadn’t really planned it this time but when I was trying to write this chapter from Vanya’s POV it just wasn’t working for me; I couldn’t get started. So I just started writing out how I wanted the scenes to go when I realized I needed to write it from Ben’s POV for it to really flow. So... ta-da.

**Ben**

Benjamin Hargreeves (bibliophile, ghost, unseen witness to his siblings’ dumbest decisions) was perched on the back of an armchair in the lounge watching as everyone argued about their next move.

“I don’t like it,” Five had grumbled after Vanya had outlined her plans to the group. He was pacing the room like a caged tiger, eyes darting to the exits as if expecting more Commission goons to jump out and start shooting at any moment. It would be less worrying if Vanya wasn’t also doing so from her spot on the couch.

Klaus made a dismissive sound and waved his hand. “You don’t like anything Fivey, how is that news?”

Five narrowed his eyes at Klaus who was sitting primly between Dave and Eudora, and flipped him off before turning back to Vanya.

“Most likely scenario is that Jenkins was going to try and ingratiate himself with you to try and get close enough to the others so he could kill them out of some twisted logic that killing them would make him feel better about dad blowing him off as a kid,” Five said with his lip curled in disdain.

Vanya was shaking her head before Five even finished speaking.

“You said the bodies had no marks on them and that there was a burned out corpse next to them but you don’t know who it was. It was probably me, but if it was, where was Leonard’s body? Who does the eye belong to? How did he manage to kill you all? We’re missing a lot of pieces here Five and the only way I can see us getting them is if Harold thinks his plan is still viable.”

“You don’t think maybe hitting him over the head with a brass gong is going to tip him off that you don’t trust him?” Diego grumbled, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I hit him from behind, I don’t think he knows it was me,” Vanya said with a raised eyebrow at Diego’s huffy attitude. “If we can find out what he plans to do next we can better prevent it from coming to pass, and once we’ve done that Five and I can take the Briefcase to destroy Commission headquarters.”

“That seems terribly vague,” Eudora said with a frown in Vanya’s direction.

“I’ve only been in the agent section of the building before, but I know where the management offices are,” Five said with a glower. “The entire building is suspended in time so we’ll actually have to be inside to damage it, but with Vanya’s powers it’ll actually be a pretty simple matter to tear it all down.”

The two of them shared a look and for a moment Ben felt a swooping sensation in the stomach he didn’t actually have anymore. He had seen that look often enough as a child, whenever Five wanted to pull Seven into his plotting that he was keeping everyone else out of, and Seven was eager to perform mischief on the others. It was a look that meant they were holding something back from the others and Ben didn’t like it one bit.

But before he could say anything to Klaus, Vanya was saying his name.

“Ben can watch me, and if anything goes wrong he can get Klaus.”

And Ben almost chokes because...because Vanya knows he’s here and she trusts him and trusts Klaus and Ben never thought any of his siblings would acknowledge him again and here’s Vanya doing it so casually.

The others don’t look so convinced, which was really unfair considering Klaus had been 100% correct about Helen Cho and Mr. Jenkins earlier.

“Is Klaus...sober enough for that right now?” Luther asked delicately.

Dave bristles at the accusation but Klaus just toasts Luther with his glass of water.

“Two and a half days sober, and before that only pot and mood stabilizers brother dear; I’ve got this,” He says with a smile before turning to Ben. “You ready to babysit Vanya while she cons the Harbinger of the Apocalypse?”

Ben snorted as he watched Vanya roll her eyes.

“I babysat you because you are a disaster; Vanya can function like an adult if left to her own devices. I’m her lookout, not her babysitter.”

Klaus gasped and clutched a hand to his chest dramatically.

“You wound me Benjamin, I am completely capable of taking care of myself.”

“No you’re not,” Ben said at the same time as Five spoke with a judgmental tone.

“Three days ago I watched you eat a bagel out of a dumpster.”

“Gross,” Allison muttered under her breath before turning to Vanya. “Are you sure about this Vanya? About being in that bunker again? Nevermind being trapped in there with a murderer.”

Vanya gave Allison a sad smile.

“So long as I can hear my own heartbeat I can use my powers and if it comes down to it, he won’t be the first person I’ve intentionally killed with my powers.”

And fuck, is that a punch to the gut. Before everything had gone so totally wrong, before his death and Five’s disappearance the three of them had been close. Five, Six, and Seven reading together in a quiet section of the library. All he’d been able to think about as a teenager was how he was glad that Vanya at least was far away from the violence of the Umbrella Academy. And here she sat with gun calluses on her fingers, tattoos on her arms, and the heaviness that comes with death sitting on her shoulders. His sister was a killer (and Klaus said he wasn’t counting the nannies from childhood because that was definitely Reginald’s fault so Ben wasn’t going to count it either) and Ben could see in her eyes that she was ready to do terrible things if it meant keeping the others safe. It was all the terrible things he hadn’t wanted for any of them.

Too late to mourn the children they could have been; far too late.

“Besides,” Vanya was saying with a wave of her hand, something she must have picked up from Klaus while they were in Vietnam. “I’ll just knock him out again once I have the info. So long as everyone else is clear on what they need to do, we should probably do this now.”

Everyone looks varying degrees of uncomfortable but Luther looks like he wants to be sick and Allison has started chewing on the inside of her lip again.

Klaus bounces to his feet and claps his hands in a show of enthusiasm Ben knows is partially forced.

“Chop chop, everyone! Mom says he woke up almost an hour ago; our window for this con is closing! Luther don’t say anything, you can’t lie for shit! Ally-Cat you look terrible; keep that up! Diego; get your brood on and you knives out and look menacing! Ben, you ready to be a voyeur? Everyone remember your lines? Fantastic! Let’s go!”

Ben notices Eudora look longingly at one of the bourbon bottles behind the bar before she sighed to herself and followed the others out of the parlor.

It takes two trips for everyone to make it down to the basement, the elevator having not been made to fit seven adults and one child at one time. Ben just let himself sink through the floor rather than risk one of his siblings standing in him the whole way down.

Once they were all there Vanya carefully mussed her hair and walked towards Luther.

“Remember, just look hurt and angry, like you think I was working with him to hurt you guys, don’t say anything to him, don’t give him any hints to what you do or don’t know.”

The others nodded and Luther bent down to pick Vanya up and cradle her in his arms. Once she was situated she closed her eyes and went limp and off they went.

Harold Jenkins was pacing the small cell looking angry and afraid and when he saw Luther, Diego and Allison approach he jerked in surprise at the tableau.

Allison and Luther were pretending to argue, Allison laying a hand on Vanya and then shaking her head as if in disbelief. Diego spinning open the locks on the bunker door. Klaus, Dave, Five and Eudora hung back out of sight of the tiny window.

Once the door was open Diego pointed a knife threateningly in Jenkins direction.

“You keep back,” Diego said coldly while gesturing with his knife, as Harold held up his hands and took a step back.

“What’s going on? What’d you do to Vanya?”

Ben felt his lip curl in disgust, he hated this man saying his sister’s name like he had a right to it, like he was her friend.

Luther said nothing, just deposited their tiny sister on the cot and walked out, letting Allison step into the room and pin Jenkins with a glare.

“This is all your fault,” she hissed venomously at him before pulling Diego out of the bunker with her, leaving Vanya alone with a murderer and a ghost.

* * *

Vanya was a good actress, “coming to” with a fluttering of her eyelids and a whimpering groan.

Jenkins moves to her side and brushed her hair out of her face.

Ben growled in irritation.

“Vanya are you okay?”

“Leonard?” Vanya whispered, as if confused. “Wha--what happened? Where are we?”

“You don’t remember?”

“We were... you’d just told me someone had left you a note telling you to meet me at the Academy? But I didn’t send the note, and then Klaus said... something and that’s...that’s all I remember,” Vanya said with a little tremble in her voice.

“You siblings knocked us out, and then dumped us here.”

Which was half true, Diego and Five had gleefully dragged Harold Jenkins down to the bunker by his legs once Pogo had appeared to see the cause of the commotion and found an unconscious interloper on the floor and everyone else trying to think of where to put him while they broke into his house.

“Wha-why would they do that?”

“They,” Jenkins paused to lick his lips with a hungry look in his eyes. “They were saying you were dangerous and that I was helping you hurt them, what the hell is wrong with them, by the way?”

_ So, so many things, but not nearly as many as you, _ Ben thought as he remembered what Jenkins attic had looked like.

“But I’m--I’m just ordinary, how could I be dangerous?”

Ben gave an involuntary snort at that blatant lie. Ben had been given a front row seat to The Banana Incident of 1999, okay? Vanya had been plenty dangerous even when she had been “just ordinary”.

“What if...you weren’t?” Jenkins said slowly. Glancing at Vanya to gauge her reaction.

“Weren’t what?” Vanya asked, her brow wrinkling in confusion.

“Ordinary,” Jenkins said in a breathy whisper.

Vanya just stared at him, uncomprehending.

“But, that’s what I am,” she said as if she hadn’t fought in the Vietnam War and come out singing.

“Do you recognize this room, Vanya?” Jenkins asked with mounting excitement.

“No...maybe...I don’t know, why?”

“Because when they brought you in, they were saying this would neutralize you. Why would they say that if you didn’t have powers? If you weren’t just as special as them, and posed a threat to their power structure?”

“No. NO!” Vanya’s voice raised as she scrambled to get out of Jenkins's reach, turning to face the wall so Jenkins couldn’t see her face but Ben couldn’t miss the thumbs up she was giving she had tucked up against her chest. “My siblings wouldn’t do that to me! Even if I did have powers, which I don’t!”

“Then why else would they put us down here? They were afraid of what they thought you could do, so they stuffed you here and left us! They couldn’t handle just how special you could be so they locked you up!”

“No! NO!” Vanya screamed, and this time Ben could see waves of energy rolling off his sister’s arms, pushing into the noise cancellation spikes on the walls.

“Yes Vanya,” Jenkins said forcefully, moving closer but still keeping out of reach. “You’re special, you have always been special, and your family hates you for it. They let you drug yourself for years, and when you stopped they locked you up. They are afraid of you, and they should be! Look at you, you’re in a room that was designed to make you powerless and you have power rolling off you in waves!”

Vanya jerks her head down, looking over herself as if she hadn’t noticed what she was doing.

“What...what is this?”

And damn if Ben hadn’t known it was an act he would have been terrified about what was happening to Vanya.

“You’re special Vanya,” Jenkins said, and Ben hated how fucking _ genuine _ this creep sounded about that. Remembering just how sad and lonely his sister had seemed the day of the funeral, Ben had no trouble believing she would have let this guy get close to her if he’d treated her like that; its not like anyone else had really bothered.

“You’ve always been special, maybe now it's time to show your siblings just how special you can be.”

Suddenly, everything went very still. In the quiet of the noise cancellation room Vanya’s horrified whisper was only heard by the ghost she couldn’t see.

“Oh god, that’s exactly what happened isn’t it? I wanted attention so badly I killed them all to get it. Oh god--” Vanya broke off with a choked sob and turned to face Harold Jenkins with hate filled eyes. "You used me to kill my family didn't you!?"

**Five**

Five Hargreeves hated waiting; he had never been patient and spending most of his life waiting to come back to his siblings and prevent the Apocalypse hadn’t really warmed him up to the concept.

Waiting in solitude had been bad enough, but waiting with his siblings while they were fretting like old ladies was grating on his nerves. So much so, that when Klaus’s head suddenly snapped up with a look of panic written across it Five didn’t even wait to hear anything beyond, “Vanya.”

Five turned the corner at a sprint and Jumped into the bunker, Harold Jenkins was slumped over against the wall and Five wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead, didn’t really care either not when Vanya was curled up on the floor making horrible gasping cries.

Unsure what else to do Five dropped to his knees and wrapped an arm over her shoulder and held her as she cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always tell me what you liked about this chapter, even its something small or silly. I love to know what you guys liked because it makes me so happy that I’ve made other people feel things, ya know?
> 
> Also if you want to read about The Banana Incident Of 1999 I've actually written that fic with that very same name!


	11. I Will Not Ask You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short bridge chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long time between updates, my cat that’s been my baby since I was nine years old had cancer and had to be put down a few weeks ago and it frankly did not leave me in a writing kind of mood. I was doing better today and churned out something of a small bridge chapter and I have even started working on the next chapter so don’t worry; I’m not abandoning this work. I just wanted to say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you to everyone who left comments and encouragement because I really really needed it. I hope to finish the next update in less time than this one took but if I don’t please be patient with me and know that I love this story and want it done right. As always comments are appreciated, tell me what you liked and what you hope to see.

**Five**

Five Hargreeves had never been good at dealing with emotion, not his own and certainly not other people’s. It made him uncomfortable to witness other people’s outpouring of emotion in general but above all things, he hated to see Vanya cry. Whether it was the old man killing the baby bird she was attempting to nurse back to health, or Allison saying something cutting and mean, Five hated seeing his sister in pain. Crouching in the gloomy bunker with Vanya sobbing hysterically Five starts to panic because this time he doesn’t even know exactly why she’s upset, doesn’t know what she learned from Jenkins that set her crying like this.

Distantly Five was aware of the spinning of the gear as the others opened the doors to the bunker but he kept his arm around Vanya’s shoulder, only moving when Klaus dropped to his knees on her other side and began to rub circles on her back.

“I killed you all!” Vanya wailed, her shoulders heaving with sobs. “I trusted a murderer and I killed my own family!”

_ What? _

“Van, it's not your fault,” Klaus says with authority as he motions for Diego to check on Jenkins. “What happened the first time happened because you were alone, and you are never going to be alone again, I promise. You’re going to get sick of me hanging around your apartment, and stealing your cereal, Ben’ll be there to nag you into healthier caffeine habits, and Five’ll eat those monstrosities you call sandwiches, and you aren’t going to end the world because you are so much better than that V.”

_ What? _

“I killed you all,” Vanya wailed again, clutching her arms so tightly her knuckles were white. “I let him into my life and he lied to me and I fell for it and I killed you!”

By the end of her sentence she was screaming and rocking back and forth and there was so much energy washing off Vanya that Five feels like he might get knocked over if he were standing; Dave had already braced himself with a hand against the wall and Allison’s hair is whipping around wildly.

“You were lonely,” Dave spoke in a calm measured voice. “Going through withdrawal and desperate for a friend and for validation, and while this time travel thing is giving me a headache I do know that you haven’t done it yet, so I need you to take a deep breath for me okay? Can you do that Van?”

Vanya’s lower lip wobbled but she nodded and took in a gaspy shuddering breath that she let out in a rush.

Klaus gently took one of her hands and laid the palm flat against his chest.

“Great job, V!” Klaus said with a weak smile on his face. “Now just keep doing that, there we go!”

They stayed like that for several minutes as Vanya tried to get her breathing under control and eventually the body racking sobs came to an end Vanya was able to look around her.

“Sorry,” she whispered as she took in everyone’s worried faces.

Klaus tutted and wiped at her cheeks with the sleeve of his coat.

“Don’t you dare apologize, everyone needs a good cry now and again, and you were due one after finding out a sociopath targeted you in an attempt to kill your family.”

Vanya whimpers at the reminder but begins hauling herself to her feet.

“Let’s get out of here; I’m tired and I’m going to need some sleep before we deal with the Commission,” she says apologetically turning to Five.

Five nodded vigorously. “The rest of us can keep watch if you need to sleep. So long as both you and Jenkins are out of sight of the Commission’s watch dogs we should be alright.” Five grimaced before adding, “Barring unforeseen complications of course.”

  
  


**Hazel**

Protect Harold Jenkins.

Hazel stared at the slip of paper in Cha-Cha’s grasp and scowled; he hated protection jobs. It was almost infinitely more complicated to keep someone alive and well than it was to kill them.

“I need a hit of sucrose,” Hazel said without even making eye contact with Cha-Cha. “I’m headin’ to the vending machine.”

“Fine,” she bit out without looking at him.

Hazel slammed the door behind him as he walked around the corner of the Fortune Smiles motel. This assignment could not possibly get any worse.

  
  
  


**The Handler**

The Handler was tapping her fingers on the desk in a quick staccato. Her agents were able to confirm that Jenkins had gone to meet with Vanya but after that no one was sure where they’d gone because neither of them were at the cabin like they were supposed to be.

Nodding to herself she pushed away from her desk and headed for the briefcase room; if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.


	12. To Die For Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five and Vanya finally have a talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM AWARE THAT THIS LOOKS OMINOUS! I DO PROMISE THERE WILL BE A HAPPY ENDING. Seriously, I'm as squishy as a marshmallow and I just want these idiots to be happy.

**Eudora**

Eudora Patch could feel the tension in the Umbrella Academy pulled taut as a bowstring the moment she stepped through the front door. She hadn’t wanted to leave, but five hours into their awkward vigil over Vanya, her captain had paged her and when she called they needed her to look over some security footage from the motor lodge. She was still half convinced that the entire city block might be on fire by the time she got back; the entire Hargreeves family ship was comprised of loose cannons as far as she could tell and they all seemed to bring out the worst in each other when they were scared or angry.

Finding out that their sister was the cause of the Apocalypse definitely had them all scared and angry, even if they didn’t want to admit it. It was almost morbidly fascinating to watch the different reactions they all had to the same bad news. Like a car crash happening in slow motion.

Luther was pacing back and forth muttering to himself, things like: “If he had just taught her to control it!” and “Why didn’t he just tell me?”

In stark contrast to Luther’s constant movement Allison was holding very still, only her eyes darting around the room showed that she hadn’t gone completely catatonic.

Diego kept “making sweeps of the perimeter” (running in circles like a panicked chicken) and Dave and Klaus were standing guard over Vanya while she slept. 

Of all the siblings it was Five’s reaction that had Eudora concerned; he had rounded up about ten different chalkboards and spread them out around the parlor and was jumping from board to board like a neurotic bunny rabbit. A neurotic bunny rabbit that was trained as an assassin. _ Perfect. _

Since she had walked into the room half an hour ago his mounting aggravation had mostly been focused on one board in the corner. The writing here was smaller than most of the other boards and more erratic. Looking closer it seemed to be two parts math one part rant and one part music theory and Eudora was honestly at a loss to guess what on earth he was trying to solve.

**Five**

Vanya was the bomb that ended the world. Five could see that now; it was so obvious with the knowledge that his sister had powers that could manipulate sound and energy that were affected by her emotions and given that in the first timeline she was at the mercy of a manipulative sociopath while going cold turkey from drugs that she had taken since she was four it wasn’t hard to see how she had managed to destroy everything when confronted with their siblings.

Five scratched out a line of equations so aggressively he broke the chalk in his hand and had to bite his lip to keep from screaming in frustration.

The Vanya that had ended everything must have been terribly spectacular, all that power and pain bubbling away under her skin until she exploded and took everyone else with her. Five wondered if he would even have noticed Vanya about to go nuclear? If Hazel and Cha-Cha hadn’t changed the timeline and given Vanya the means to explore her powers without interruption. If Jenkins had been successful in gaining Vanya’s trust and he had unlocked her powers in an attempt to kill them all, would Five have even noticed? Five had a terrible suspicion that he would have been too focused on the glass eye he had pulled from Luther’s slack grasp all those years ago to notice that his ordinary sister was the most important piece of the puzzle he was trying to solve.

In the end it wasn’t anything he had done that had saved them, it was Diego and Eudora’s interference with Hazel and Cha-Cha that allowed Klaus and Vanya to save themselves, and the rest of the world in the process.

“Five?”

Five gritted his teeth so hard he almost pulled a muscle in his jaw.

“Yes Luther?” Five grit out.

“If the Commission’s plan hinges on Vanya being unstable, what are they going to do when they realize she’s in control of her powers?”

An unfortunate trait of Luther’s was that when he wasn’t being an idiot he was actually pretty smart.

“I’m not going to give them a chance to live long enough to find out,” Five said as if this was obvious. “I need to check on a variable, don’t get killed while I’m upstairs.”

With a parting salute he Jumped away from his siblings and into Klaus’s room where he was actually mildly impressed by Dave’s reaction time.

“Nicely done,” he said as he watched Dave’s shoulders relax and the man sit back down in the chair.

“I could have shot you,” Dave replied dryly. “Sure, you might have dodged it, but there’s always the chance I could have hit you and then Vanya would be upset that I shot you.”

Five grimaced and turned to look at his sister still asleep on Klaus’s bed.

“Time travel leaves you with jet lag from hell, never mind that she was awake for almost twenty-four hours straight and then the thing with Jenkins...” Five trailed off unsure and turned back to Dave who was just watching him from the corner.

“When was the last time you slept man?” Dave asked.

Five almost told him to fuck off but then he figured he was doing the math that was going to save the world; he should probably be better rested than he currently was.

“Almost a day ago,” Five admitted grudgingly. 

“I don’t think Vanya will mind sharing the bed with you Five,” Dave said kindly.

Five considered it for a moment before speaking again.

“Wake me up the second anything starts to happen,” Five said and began toeing off his shoes and laying on top of the blanket next to Vanya, and drifted off faster than he would ever have thought possible.

**Vanya**

Taking naps had always reminded Vanya of a spinning a roulette wheel of chance; she was never sure how she would feel when she woke up. Would she be hot and cranky, discombobulated, somehow even more tired than she’d been before, nauseous? She could never be sure, but waking up in Klaus’s bed after passing out after her meltdown in the bunker she actually felt well rested, which was honestly a rarity for her. 

Waking up with Five curled up next to her however was something she had not expected to happen.

“Five,” her sleep muddled brain struggled to find a reason that her prickly brother would deign to crawl into bed with anyone and drew a blank.

Sitting up brought Dave into view, sitting by Klaus’s bedroom door with his gun in his lap. Just like he had been when she’d fallen asleep and she knew without asking that Klaus would be right outside the door guarding the hallway and Ben was acting as his lookout.

“How long have I been out, and where is everyone else?” Vanya managed to croak out, her throat so dry it felt like it was covered in sandpaper. Beside her Five twitched and moaned but didn’t open his eyes.

Pushing the covers off Vanya stood unsteadily and cast about for her bag that she’d dumped on Klaus’s floor the day before.

“Klaus is right outside the door and Ben is doing sweeps of the perimeter, he’ll give us a heads up if any Commission goons show up. The rest of your siblings are downstairs and Patch got called by her Captain a little while ago. You have been sleeping for almost ten hours and Five joined you about three hours ago, how are ya feelin’ Van?” Dave’s asked from where he sat with a gun in his hand in the corner of the room.

Vanya rubbed her eyes vigorously before answering.

“I’m going to need a shower and a metric fuck-ton of coffee and I’m pissed that people want to use me to end the world but other than that I’m okay.”

Dave made a face that told her he doubted that but let it pass, watching as she began rooting through Klaus’s piles of stuff.

“I think your bag ended up in that pile with the stuffed unicorn on top,” Dave said dryly after watching Vanya poke gingerly at a towering pile of clothing with her foot.

Vanya stumbled over to the correct pile and pushed aside Klaus’s things until she saw her bag. Reaching inside she pulled out the dress she’d bought the last time she’d gone shopping with Eve.

Eve had loved shopping and had been eager to bulk up Vanya’s wardrobe before she had to leave and Vanya pressed her lips together to keep from crying. She hoped Eve was still alive; she wanted to see her again once this Commission bullshit was taken care of. Eve and Murphy and Jo and everyone else who had come to mean so much to Vanya while she was in the past. Fifty years later meant some of them were probably dead but odds were that at least a few of them would still be alive and Vanya was going to hold onto that hope and do whatever it took to keep herself under control.

There was a soft knock at the door and Klaus’s muffled voice spoke from the hallway.

“You awake Vanya?”

“Yeah, I’m up,” Vanya said as she pulled Klaus’s door open and poked her head into the hallway. “I really need a shower and some coffee, do you think you could ask mom to start a pot without alerting the entire house?”

Klaus snorted and muttered something that sounded very much like _ “the only addict in the family my ass’ _ before he looked her in the eye. “I don’t think there’s any coffee in the house V, caffeine was Verboden, surely you remember this from our hellish childhood? Also Ben wants to know when you are going to put Five out of his misery,” KLaus asks around the hangnail he is oh so casually chewing. “Because apparently earlier he looked minutes away from giving himself a hernia.”

Vanya raised an eyebrow and handed Klaus the coffee beans Becca had given her before they’d left 1968.

“An entire pot please, Five will want some too, and do you two think you can keep the others distracted while I have a talk with Five?” she said and then turned to Dave who was watching her with one raised eyebrow. “Why don’t you help him, I’m sure he’d appreciate the company.”

Dave smiled knowingly at her and holstered his gun as he stood.

“Of course Vanya. Take as long as you need; you two are going to be battling these Commission people by yourselves, you two need to be on the same page before you jump into that mess. Shout if you need any help,” Dave said and leaned forward and kissed her forehead before he followed Klaus down the hall.

Vanya watched him go before turning back to the bed to see Five staring at her from his perch on Klaus’s bed.

“We need to talk,” Vanya said as she closed the door behind her, watching Five swing his legs over the side of the mattress.

“About?” Five asked dryly as he reached for his shoes from where they were tucked under the bed.

“I wonder why dad never just killed me.”

Five almost choked on his own spit, turning to look at her but Vanya was just standing there staring into the distance.

“I mean look what happened to Ben when he felt he was losing control of his powers, wasn’t drugging me a lot more complicated than just killing me when I was four and chucking my corpse into an incinerator. As much as I don’t want to die, I have to wonder would everyone have been better off if I’d died?”

Five felt is stomach lurch and he Jumped into the space in front of Vanya.

“The whole world would have been better off if dad had kicked the bucket before he’d ever given you those pills,” Five growled as he grabbed Vanya by the shoulders. “If you’d been allowed to refine your powers your entire life and hadn’t been drugged numb!”

“I killed everyone on the planet Five,” Vanya whispered and Five could see tears forming in her eyes. “And you were trapped in the hell that I made. I_ know _ it hasn’t happened for anyone else but that happened to _ you _ and I’m the one that did that.”

“I’d argue that the Commission holds at least some of the blame,” Five starts to so but Vanya is already shaking her head so Five grips her shoulders tighter and keeps talking. “But if you insist on taking all the blame you’ll just have to make it up to me by helping me on what might just be a suicide mission.”

Vanya blinked twice.

“What?”

* * *

Vanya tried to relax as the water pounded her shoulders. She had always liked her water temperature just this side of boiling and the steam filled the entire bathroom as she scrubbed vigorously at her skin. The unfortunate side effect of the relaxing nature of a shower was that Vanya now had plenty of brainpower handy to think about everything she had been avoiding while she was sleeping.

She felt nervous and unsure and for a moment she had a nauseating sense of vertigo as she imagined Number Seven and the looks she used to give Five. How afraid she had always been that he would eventually tire of her presence like the others and tell her to go away. For all that Vanya had changed she still had Seven’s feel of terrible uneasiness inside her.

Because despite everything Klaus and Dave and Five kept telling her a different version of her had killed her family, ended all life on earth, and trapped her thirteen year old brother in a hellscape for just under half a century. She had to be better than that person and while the bar had never been set quite so low before, Vanya was nevertheless afraid she could still be the cause of untold suffering. Vanya set her jaw and scrubbed at her determined to save her family this time, no matter what it took.

Rinsing the suds out of her hair and working in a dollop of conditioner, Vanya rushed through drying off and barely bothered to blow dry her hair before shimmying into the clothes she’d brought with her to the bathroom. She all but ran down the stairs to the kitchen with Dave and Klaus on her heels and almost ran into Grace as she skidded around the corner.

“Be careful Vanya dear,” Grace said indulgently smiling even as she cupped Vanya’s face in her hands. “You might hurt yourself.”

Without thinking about it Vanya threw her arms around Grace and pulled her into a tight hug. When Vanya finally loosened her grip Grace beamed and lifted two mugs down from the cabinet and handed them to Vanya. 

“Thanks Mom,” Vanya said brightly as she set the mugs down to pour coffee into both of them. “Do you know if Five is still in the parlor?”

Grace smiled her beaming smile. “Yes dear, all of them are waiting in the parlor for you.”

Vanya winced as she headed for the stairs.

That’s what I was afraid of,” she muttered as she headed up the stairs.

  
  
  


**Five**

Five was honestly impressed with how quickly Vanya and Klaus were able to clear the rest of their siblings from the room so they could go over the plan one more time before they left; he watched as Klaus and Dave herded the rest of his siblings plus Eudora out of the room, Eudora helping Allison to her feet and the two of them head towards the kitchen as Diego and Luther protest until Klaus asks if they want Vanya to pick them up and remove them herself, and suddenly it was just him and Vanya in the room. Five and Seven.

Vanya held out the cup in her right hand for Five to take. Her hair was still damp like she hadn’t bothered to use the hair dryer properly and she was wearing a paisley monstrosity that couldn’t have come from from anywhere but the 1960’s.

“Black, no sugar alright with you?” Vanya asks without making eye contact.

Five nodded as he took the mug and took a sip, noting distantly that it was must better than the swill he’d got from Griddy’s.

Vanya sighed, and then because she was smarter than everyone else in their family, she turned to the blackboard he had been working on when she had entered.

Five watched as Vanya stood in front of the blackboard filled with his calculations and slowly took in his extrapolations of the nature of the Briefcases. Five knew the moment she understood that if they destroyed the Commission’s headquarters their stolen Briefcase would no longer work. Her eyebrows raised imperceptibly and her mouth pinched, turning to him with the question in her eyes: Are we going to die to save our family? 

Five took a steadying breath before shaking his head and turning the board over so she could see the calculation on the other side. The ones that were the cause of his current physical predicament. A fifty-eight year old stuck in a thirteen year old body. Vanya looked at his augmented equations and nodded.

“So we might both end up like you?” Vanya asked hesitantly.

Five just nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“It’s possible that my calculations are still wrong and we could become disconnected from our physical forms entirely so that’s something to consider as well.”

“Oh...great,” Vanya turns slowly away from the blackboard. “You do realize they are all going to have a meltdown right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Everyone! Please leave a comment if you are able to; it really does mean the world to me! Tell me what you liked and what you hope to see next.


	13. We Will Burn Your Kingdom Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Number Seven sets the script on fire and gives the authors a glowing middle finger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...it’s been a while. I’ve been going through some stuff in my personal life and I just wanted to thank everyone who has been leaving comments despite the lack of updates. Especially recently; they were actually what inspired me to start writing again. So I want you to know that this one's for you guys and don’t worry about the cliffhanger at the end; I promised you a happy ending and you are going to get one.

**Five**

Five pulled the long-sleeved dark gray t-shirt over his head and tucked them into the black trousers Vanya had tossed him from the bag she had brought with her from the 1960’s. Paired with the athletic shoes from his childhood, Five felt less ridiculous than he had for the last few days in his schoolboy gettup. 

Knowing he was going to have to conserve energy for his jumps Five walked back down the stairs to the kitchen where he could hear his siblings arguing loudly about not wanting to be left behind while Five and Vanya took out the Commission on their own.

Dave was loudly arguing that Vanya was the most capable person to handle the threat and if they all go they will be a liability and a distraction and might end up getting hurt or even killed.

Before Five can enter Klaus comes around the corner chewing on his thumbnail idly and flaps his hands at Five to shoo him further into the hallway.

“Five,” Klaus’s voice was more serious than Five could ever remember hearing it. “Tell me honestly, what are the odds of you being able to Jump both yourself and Vanya back after she destroys Headquarters? Because as well as Vanya is hiding her concern Benny stuck around for your conversation and he is currently convinced you both are going to die.”

Five inhaled sharply through his nose, simultaneously affronted by the slight against his abilities and reassured by Klaus’s (and Ben’s) concern for Vanya’s safety.

“Better than they will be if we wait too long and the Commission finds out Vanya has tossed out their script,” he answered grimly, his voice tight with frustration.

Klaus grimaced at that but didn’t argue further, turning his back on Five and heading into the kitchen.

Vanya was sat at the end of the table where she had always had breakfast calmly eating a roast beef sandwich as their siblings fretted. She saluted him lazily as he approached.

“Hey Five, I’m almost done here; did you want to get something to eat before we leave?”

Five shook his head as he spoke, “Nah, using the Briefcases always made me nauseous. Food is the last thing I need since we’re not going to have any recoup time.”

Vanya scrunched up her nose but didn’t argue as she finished off her sandwich.

“I still think one of us should go with you,” Luther grumbled from where he was hunched over in the corner.

“We can help,” Allison said almost desperately, wringing her hands.

“For once I agree with One and Three,” Diego said while twirling a knife between his fingers.

Eudora made a pinched face at Diego’s casual use of their numbers and slapped him on the shoulder while Vanya rolled her eyes and took another bite of her sandwich.

“If you come with us,” Five began dangerously. “You will be another target for the Commission to hit, and extra worry that Vanya frankly doesn’t need and a burden that I don’t know if I can’t carry when I Jump us back without a Briefcase. None of you are coming and that is final.”

“He’s right,” Vanya said sadly as she pushed away her empty plate. “I’m going to have to use all of my power to take these people out and that doesn’t leave a lot of room for safe space around me. Five wouldn’t be coming with me if I didn’t need him to show me where everything is and to get me back again.”

(“Harsh,” Ben said from where he was sitting next to Vanya, but only Klaus heard him and Klaus just hummed in response.)

Diego who had never met a fight he didn’t want to be a part of opened his mouth before Eudora could step on his foot.

“It’s not as if we’ve never been in a dangerous situation, we know when to take cover.”

Five opened his mouth to point out that he wasn’t a pack mule (and what did they expect him to do? Jump them all back in time like it was nothing?) but Vanya spoke first.

“I killed and entire guerrilla unit that was laying siege to an army base in the span of ten minutes,” she said in a matter of fact tone. “They screamed even as they were ripped apart and the bombs started going off because of the pressure. All that was left when I finished was twisted bits of metal and blackened bone.”

No one spoke. Klaus and Dave looked like they were trying not to fall into bad memories, Luther looked like he’d just had the ground ripped out from under his feet, and Allison looked pale and drawn but it was Diego who blanched at their sister’s straight faced recounting of her last and most violent battle in Vietnam.

“I am going to have to pull everything down, create what amounts to a vacuum and maintain a bubble inside that vacuum where Five and I will be. It will be difficult and dangerous and you will make the entire experience exponentially more difficult by being there and quite frankly we can’t take that risk.”

The silence that fell in the kitchen was heavy and uncomfortable but no one seemed to know what to say. It was something of a surprise to hear the soft click of mom’s heels as she made her way around the table. For once she wasn’t smiling.

“Well dears, if you two are ready I suppose you’ll be needing this,” Grace said calmly as she picked up the Briefcase and set it on the table between Vanya and Five.

Five turned to look at Vanya who nodded with her mouth set in a hard line as she stood.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she said grimly.

Five reached out and fiddled until he had the dials adjusted to take them to the Commission headquarters pocket of suspended spacetime.

“That’s all I can ask for honestly,” he said with a small smile.

Together they held the Briefcase handle and looked around at their siblings.

“I’ll try and get us back as close to this point in time as I can but I might be off,” Five announced suddenly. “So if we don’t show up right away it doesn’t mean we’re gone and that you all are free to make stupid choices, got it?”

It earned him quite a few eye-rolls and a quiet scoff from Patch but Klaus clutched his hands to his chest and fluttered his eyes like a schoolgirl. 

“Ah! Fivey! We love you too!”

Five snorted and was reaching for the clasp when Vanya’s hand shot out and clutched his wrist. He jerked his head to look at her but she was focused entirely on Dave.

“But if we don’t come back, promise me you’ll look after them? All of them? They’re a mess but I love them so much, and honestly they need as much help as I did,” Vanya said with a sad smile.

“Oh course I will Van,” Dave said as he laced his fingers with Klaus’s and brought the back of his hand to his lips for a soft kiss. “Klaus will interpret and Ben will be able to help me until you two get back, whenever that will be.”

“I’ll help too Vanya,” Patch said from where she was standing in the doorway. “I know we just met but I do promise to help keep your family safe until you get back.”

Vanya pressed her lips together like she was trying not to cry. “Thank you so much Eudora, it means the world to me.”

“I feel like we should be insulted at the implication that we can’t take care of ourselves,” Allison muttered softly to her folded hands.

Klaus shook his head. “Ben says that’s fair; we all earned that implication.”

Vanya snorted a laugh that almost sounded like a cry and turned to Five before she could lose her nerve.

“Let’s go.”

Five nodded and with a small wave to the others they were gone with a flash of blue light and the smell of ozone.

* * *

Approximately .02 seconds after Vanya and Five vanished from the kitchen a woman appeared in the entryway. Her pale face and hair were partially concealed by the black hat with a birdcage veil, and her black shoes clicked lightly on the tile floor as she shifted her weight to reach for the dial that would bring everything around her to a grinding halt.

Nodding in satisfaction as she felt everything around her freeze as if trapped in amber she brushed off her skirt and headed for the parlor where she could see the chalkboards covered in Five’s erratic scrawling handwriting.

* * *

  
  


**Five**

Five and Vanya landed with a whoosh and a thump in a supply closet on the ground floor of the observation telescope. 

Vanya immediately released her grip on the briefcase to rub at her nose.

“That does not get better with repeat experiences,” she muttered darkly to herself as Five readjusted his grip on the Briefcase so he could reach around in the dark for the door handle.

“It really doesn’t,” Five agreed mildly, opening the door and flooding the small space with fluorescent light. “But we need to get moving fast. This case is registered under Hazel and Cha-Cha, and there’s already been one unauthorized round trip on here, the people in charge of the cases are going to get suspicious fast now that we’re here.”

Vanya nodded grimly and shoved a pair of sunglasses on her face before poking her head into the hallway.

“Which way to the briefcase room?” she asked quietly as they made their way towards the exit.

  
  


**Dot**

Dot (Broadway junkie, obsessive compulsive, lactose intolerant) was about to take a bite of her sandwich when the entire building rocked with an explosion and the screaming started.

Dot disliked physical exercise, and she especially did not like running in heels but when history’s most elite assassins started screaming in abject terror around you, it motivated you a little more than the interdepartmental weight loss competition.

Upon reaching the landing she could see exactly what was causing the panic, Vanya Hargreeves, the Harbinger of the Apocalypse Herself, was standing in the lobby playing a song fit for the end of the world, her powers swirling around her like a whirlpool, and the smoking remains of the Briefcase room scattered around the main hall like blackened twisted confetti.

This alone would be concerning, but it was the small figure next to her clad in plain dark clothes that arrested Dot’s attention.

“Oh my goodness, its Number Five!” Dot gasped, coming to such an abrupt halt that she had to grasp the railing to keep from pitching forward down the stairs.

** _How?!_ ** _ That’s what he looked like when he dropped into 2019 as a child! _ The logical part of her brain was screaming.

_ What the hell was going on?! _

  
  


**Vanya**

Vanya Hargreeves was soaring. This was everything she could have been if she’d been allowed to be extraordinary. The music inside her was flowing in a way that it had only teased at in her audition; everything she had ever felt, every ache and pain and joy and triumph rose in her now and she let it out into the wonderful white glowing burning energy that was her gift.

In one life she had ended the world, in this life she would save it.

She had to.

  
  


**Five**

Five Hargreeves stood behind his sister and watched as she pulled her violin out of its case and tucked it under her chin. She hadn’t bothered to use it on the Briefcase room, had simply focused on the “incessant humming” that only she seemed to be able to hear and suddenly the room that held the most valuable resource the Commission had imploded in on itself in a fiery blast.

Until that moment most people’s eyes had slid right off them, Vanya with her head down not garnering a second glance and his own childish appearance being met with mild bemusement. All of that went out the window when Vanya started playing her violin; waves of energy rippling off her like waves of her own personal ocean, and the music itself has so much feeling suffused into it that it leaves Five gasping with emotions he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling anymore.

When Vanya had started to play Five had thought for a moment that she was playing the opening notes of The Phantom of the Opera. Five hadn’t questioned her when she’d told him she was bringing her violin, hadn’t asked why she felt more comfortable manipulating sound she’d made herself instead of using the noise around her, there was a certain logic in that.

But now he was really beginning to understand; the music she made had changed; she was no longer playing something someone else had composed, she was playing something that was entirely her and it was the most extraordinary thing Five had ever heard.

Commission foot soldiers had poured into the atrium where he and Vanya stood but Five ignored them; he had warned Vanya about the foot soldiers the Commission used. The faceless grunts that would come in waves when something had to be, not just destroyed, but wiped off the map. Vanya had them well in hand, the wall of sound and energy she had wrapped protectively around the two of them kept them safe from anything the idiots could try and do to them.

No, Five was focused on looking for something far more dangerous than a mob with guns; he was focused on finding the Handler. His eye briefly caught on a mousey woman staring at them from where she was standing perfectly still at the top of the stairs watching them with a sort of horrified fascination as Vanya played, flicking between the two of them and the remains of the briefcase room.

Unable to help himself Five gave her a shark-like smile and a salute, feeling a jolt of satisfaction when her saw her swallow in fear at his gesture.  
Five made another sweep of the room looking for any trace of those platinum blonde waves and red lipstick that had marked his first devil’s deal. Maybe it was childish but Five wanted to watch the Handler go down. Maybe once he’d seen her die and her organization crumble in on itself like a black hole he’d be able to sleep without expecting to wake up in the Apocalypse again.

“Five do you trust me?” Vanya’s voice startled him out of his search for the woman who had plucked him out of the Apocalypse and made him a killer.

He turned to look at his sister and felt his jaw drop. Vanya was glowing. Literally glowing. The white shining light from her eyes had leaked out into the rest of her and now was shining out of every pore of her skin, bleaching her very clothes and violin stark White.

Holy. _Shit._

Five swallowed thickly, because even knowing that one version of his sister had been the cause of the hellscape he had grown up in, Vanya was still his favorite sibling and if he couldn’t trust her he was really and truly fucked.

“Yes!” He yelled back.

“You’re going to need to get ready to jump! Right...NOW!”

* * *

Five Jumped and for just one moment there was only light.

Then there was nothing at all.

* * *

Jumping through space had always felt like squeezing through a rubber tube just a hair too tight to be comfortable. Jumping through time had felt like dancing through a static field while trying to keep from shaking apart. Using Vanya’s energy made the Jump so different than the first Jump back through time that he wondered almost hysterically if he was doing it right before shoving that thought away and focused on projecting the versions of them that he wanted to end up on the other side and suddenly he and Vanya were falling onto their backs looking up at a clear blue sky.

For a moment Five was too stunned to move but then Vanya’s face took up his entire field of vision and her hands were on either side of his face and she began to laugh her unguarded laugh, the one she’d always reserved for him.

“Five, Five you did it! We’re home! And you don’t look like a little kid anymore!”

Five sat up immediately and looked at his hands. They weren’t covered with age spots by any means but they were no longer the hands of a child and Five couldn’t help it, he started laughing too; they’d done it, they had stopped the Apocalypse and wiped the Commission off the map, off _ every _ map _ ever _ in fact, and now they were going to be able to celebrate with their siblings. 

“Come on Five! We have to tell them we’re back!” Vanya cried out with her eyes suffused with such joy that Five thought he might start to cry.

Springing to his feet Five let Vanya pull him into a tight hug before bounding across the street to open the front door of the Academy.

They opened the door to complete chaos. Allison was crouched in the far corner of the entryway with mom kneeling in front of her her pale hands at Allison face where her jaw seemed to be dislocated. Blood ran down Luther’s face and he was leaning against the wall as if it was the only thing keeping him upright, Diego and Patch were engaging Cha-Cha on the second floor landing (Hazel was conspicuously absent), but it was Dave’s anguished screaming that drew most of Five’s attention. 

Dave was kneeling on the ground with his head on Klaus’s chest. Klaus was laying on his back with his limbs akimbo on the Persian carpet, his green eyes open and vacant with just a hint of surprise to his face. The blood was making the curls at the back of his head look darker than they actually were.

Klaus was unmistakably dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please please leave me a comment. They mean everything to me, tell me what you liked, if a particular line struck a chord with you, what you think will come next, or just a keyboard smash if that’s all you can articulate atm. I love them all.


	14. Out of Nowhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus chats with God. She doesn't like him very much. Klaus chats with his father. Klaus likes him even less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted something that fit with the show but still showcased how different Klaus (and Vanya) has become because of the changes that were made to their realities.

**Klaus**

Klaus Hargreeves watched as Five and Vanya disappeared in a familiar flash of blue light and dropped his "Goodbye" hand out of its jaunty wave.

"And now we wait," Ben said from his spot at the table.

“And now we wait,” Klaus agreed with a nod. There is silence for approximately four seconds (and they will never realize that in those four seconds almost ten minutes passed until Vanya destroyed the Briefcase room in a pocket of spacetime and restarted the clock of the woman currently focused on Five's equations upstairs) before Klaus speaks again.

“Well I need a bath, do we have the good lavender bubble bath hidden away somewhere mom?”

Grace blinked and turned away from the spot where Five and Vanya had disappeared, looking confused for a moment before her smile slid back into place like a mask.

“Yes Klaus, its is on the top shelf of the girl’s bathroom cupboard,” Grace said as she scooped Vanya’s plate off the table and began rinsing it off in the sink. “Would you like for me to run you a bath?”

“Nein, mother dearest,” Klaus said as he flapped his hand dismissively. “ I’ll do it myself; ghosties are getting louder, they’re more manageable if I’m underwater.” Klaus leaned over and gave Dave a kiss on the cheek. “If you were serious about wanting a nap I’ll join you after I finish with my bath.”

Dave smiled around his mug of chamomile tea and nodded.

“I’m just going to finish my tea and then I’ll pack it in,” Dave said quietly as he watched Klaus spin on his heel and head upstairs.

“Diego,” Grace said suddenly as she set the now clean plate back on top of the stack in the cabinet. “Would you mind helping me make some chocolate chip cookies? They were always Vanya’s favorite and I think it would be nice to have some ready for when she comes back.”

Diego looked constipated for a moment before he replied, “Sure thing, mom. Are the chocolate chips in the freezer?” Diego asked as he stood up, ignoring Eudora’s growing smile.

“Where are the aprons?” Allison asked, pushing back from the table and pulling her hair into a loose ponytail.

“I’ll get them,” Luther said softly as he too stood up from the table to help their mother bake Vanya’s favorite cookies.

  


* * *

  


The shortest route from the kitchen to the bathroom that Vanya and Allison had shared as children took Klaus across the mezzanine that overlooked the entryway. He only made it halfway before he hear the click of a handgun behind him.

“Where is Number Five?” A cool voice asked behind him, and Klaus turned slowly with his palms raised to show he was unarmed and saw a pale woman dressed in all black with a rather large handgun pointed at him.

With her platinum blonde finger waves, birdcage veil, Briefcase in her clenched fist, and a small crowd of bloody ghosts around her; Klaus had a nasty feeling he knew exactly who was standing in front of him and why she looked ready to rip out his guts and eat them while he watched.

Klaus swallowed dryly and felt his heart leap into his throat as he fought to remain calm.

“That’s a great question,” he said trying to paste a smile on his face. “Would you believe me if I told you I’m actually not one hundred percent sure where he is?”

The Handler (because who else could this possible be?) curled her lip in a silent snarl. 

_ “What did he do? _ I know he did _ something _; he erased most of his equations but I know he was up to something, so I ask again: Where. Is. Number. Five.” She punctuated each word with a step in Klaus’s direction until she stood only a few feet from him, and it suddenly occurred to Klaus that while she had fewer ghosts around her than he’d seen in the motel room with Hazel and Cha-Cha, they looked a good deal more...messy. And that was counting the guy with stumps instead of hands.

Klaus’s throat was so dry it clicked as he swallowed.

“Probably helping Vanya blow up your headquarters,” Klaus said with a manic grin; if she was going to shoot him he was going to get in at least one wise ass remark first.

For just one second there was something like fear in The Handler’s eyes and then it was gone.

“Que será, será,” she murmured quietly before fixing her eyes over Klaus’s shoulder. “Vanya Hargreeves is the Apocalypse, it doesn’t matter _ why _ she ends the world, only that she does. Kill him.”

Klaus spins around just fast enough to see Cha-Cha standing behind him before she grabs his throat and pitches him over the railing down to the entranceway below.

His last thought before his head makes contact with the Italian marble is that for a moment he thought he heard Ben calling his name.

  
  


**Ben**

Benjamin Hargreeves had never liked baking as a child; it was messy and he would much rather spend his time in the library where he was left in peace and quiet. Watching his grown siblings attempt to bake cookies with each other was deeply amusing in ways he had never anticipated.

It was clear that none of the others were comfortable being in each other’s space like this unless they were fighting (or flirting if you thought too hard about Luther and Allison which Ben was trying hard not to honestly) and watching them dance around each other as they helped mom make cookies was warming the cockles of his non beating heart.

Eudora leaned closer to Dave so she could whisper, “If you ignore how dysfunctional they all are it's actually kind of cute.”

Dave snorted into his cup of tea and nodded as they watched Luther beating the eggs in a bowl as Allison measured out flour.

“I can’t wait to introduce them to Hanukkah; Klaus and Vanya both went absolutely nuts at the idea of family holidays,” Dave murmured back.

Ben couldn’t help but smile; Klaus had mentioned that they had stayed with Dave’s family for about a month after they got back from Vietnam but he hadn’t had time to give Ben the details of what they did while they were there.

Ben’s smile grew wider as he stood up from the table and headed upstairs. Making Klaus tell him about Hanukkah celebrations of the Katz family would be a pleasant distraction from the ghosts and hopefully would keep his mind off drugs.

Ben makes it to the stairwell when he notices Zoya Papova standing at the top looking out over the Mezzanine with mounting agitation.

Dread washed over Ben like a wave of ice water and he lept the last few stairs to get to the mezzanine in time to see Cha-Cha grab Klaus by the throat and toss him over the railing like he was a rag doll.

“Klaus!” Ben screamed as he watched his gangly brother go over the edge in a tangle of flailing limbs and a frightened shriek that ended with a sickening thud.

No.

**No.**

**NO THIS WASN’T HAPPENING!**

Ben was kneeling on the floor of the entryway before he even realized that he’d started moving. Klaus’s eyes were open wide with fear and surprise and the blood was just starting to trickle out from the back of Klaus’s skull onto the tile beneath it.

Despite being a ghost Ben felt his breath hitch and he glared up at the mezzanine where he could just barely see Cha-Cha talking with another woman.

_ Oh god, oh god where was Hazel? He had to warn the others, he had to warn them right now! How the _ ** _fuck_ ** _ was he supposed to warn them without Klaus? _

Just as Ben was preparing to run to the kitchen and figure out a plan when he got there he heard a door open on the main floor and looked up in time to watch Dave step into the light and see Klaus laying dead on the floor.

If Ben hadn’t been watching him he would never have believed the sound Dave made came from a human being.

  
  


**Klaus**

Klaus blinked his eyes open to an expanse of gray clouds. 

Klaus frowned as he sat up, his hands twisting in the gray grass that he was sprawled on.

Everything was gray, from the trees, to the grass he was laying on, to the very skin on his hands. In fact the only thing that seemed to have any color at all was his tropical tank top.

_ Huh. That was weird. _

  
  


**Allison**

Allison was just starting to feel hopeful when they hear a caterwauling scream come from upstairs. It made every hair on her arms stand on end. It chilled her to the bone. It was the sound someone would make if their heart had been ripped out of their chest.

She wasn’t even aware that she’d dropped the ceramic mixing bowl in her haste to get out of the kitchen, Luther behind her and Diego and Patch already disappearing up the stairs.

The door at the top of the service stairs was still open when Allison slammed her hands into it and barreled into the entryway, convinced that she was going to be confronted with her tiny siblings’ mangled corpses. She was surprised to see Dave hunched over Klaus, his hands framing her brother’s face as he wailed.

“What--,” Allison was going to ask what happened, but she never got the chance to finish her question; the antique fishbat the Woman in Black had swung at Allison’s head had dislocated her jaw.

  
  


**Klaus**

There was birdsong in the sterile gray environment, and soft folk music, which to be completely honest was throwing Klaus for a bit of a loop as he was pretty sure the music--or the birdsong either really--didn’t have an actual physical source. It wasn’t in his ears, just in his head.

Klaus sighed to himself as he stretched his arms over his head. Considering the last thing he remembered was Cha-Cha throwing him more than twenty feet onto a marble floor this grayscape was probably **not** a good sign.

“Hmm, this is probably bad,” Klaus muttered as he looked around.

Huh, there was a gray little girl pedaling down the road on a gray bicycle. Sure. Why not?

“Yoo-hoo!” Klaus called as he waved his right hand at the monochromatic child. “Hello.”

The girl came to a stop just in front of Klaus and looked him up and down critically “Almost didn't see you. You blend right in around here. So pale and all.”

Klaus just hummed in agreement as he cast about for a relevant question to ask.

“They don't have any sun down there?” The girl asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Down there?” That _ really _ didn’t bode well. “Where am I?”

“Where do you think?” The Girl asked dryly.

_ Ah...shit. Definitely dead then. _

“I'm not sure. I'm agnostic, so--” 

“Doesn't really matter,” The Girl said cutting Klaus off. “You can't stay here.”

“Why not?” Not that he wanted to stay here, wherever here was; it was boring and Klaus wanted Dave and Vanya and Ben and the rest of his asshole siblings.

“To be blunt, I don't really like you all that much.”

_ That was fair. _

“Hm. Yeah, me neither...but wait a minute. Aren't you supposed to love all of us?”

The girl scoffed in his face. “Where'd you get that idea? I need you so I can pick and choose. And you don't rub me the right way.”

“Wait,” Klaus said, a smile forming on his lips as he bent down so as to be eye to eye with the tiny god. “So you you made us? You made me?” 

“Well, I made everything else, so I must've made you,” The Girl said dismissively.

Klaus couldn’t help it, he lets out a sardonic little laugh.

“Why? Do you have another idea?” The Girl asked in a very dry tone.

“Maybe,” Klaus said thoughtfully. “A couple. I don't know.”

“Well, then, keep them to yourself. Time is flying, so hurry up. He's waiting for you.”

Klaus blinked in surprise. He could only think of three people who would really want to see him and of the two ‘Hims’ Klaus had left them both Ben and Dave behind at the Academy.

“Who is?” Klaus asked with mounting confusion as he pulled away from The Girl.

The Girl was giving Klaus a very judgmental and unimpressed look, which honestly Klaus was quite used to after all this time, but still odd coming from a child and pointed to her left.

In a clearing surrounded by slender pines sat a small cabin.

Klaus couldn’t help but feel a twinge of fear as he slowly made his way towards it.

  
  


**Diego**

Diego Hargreeves turned the corner of the mezzanine at a sprint and only avoided a bullet to the chest because Eudora grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and yanked him out of Cha-Cha’s line of fire.

“Where’s the other one?!” Eudora shouted over the din of gunfire as Diego pulled two knives from their holsters and began mentally calculating angles.

“What?!” He yelled back, and it was only with great effort that Eudora kept her eyes from rolling back into her head at his stupidity.

“Hazel? The big guy that tossed Luther around like a ragdoll, tortured Vanya and Klaus for almost twenty hours the other day?” Edora asked as she checked how many rounds she had left in her gun (not nearly as many as she would like to have when going up against someone like Cha-Cha). “Any of this ringing a bell?”

Diego gave her a very sour look as he threw two of his knives around the corner at speed. Judging by the growl of frustration and pain they heard a moment later at least one of them had made contact with the pissed off assassin.

“Well if the big guy shows up, we’ll worry about it then!” Diego whisper shouted back as Eudora squared her shoulders and prepared to fire.

  
  


**Klaus**

Klaus Hargreeves was biting his lip hard to keep from having a meltdown.

He’d had a bad feeling when he’d opened the cabin door and stepped into a barbershop much bigger than the cabin, but the bad feeling had escalated to something like panic when he looked at the wall and seen a line of framed photos of his brothers looking stoic and uncomfortable with one photo of Reginald Hargreeves glaring out of his frame.

Klaus made the executive decision to _ not _ sit down in the barber’s chair.

“What in God's name took you so long?”

Klaus hadn’t seen his father in over ten years but hearing his voice raining down disappointment felt like the most familiar thing in the world and Klaus hated the way he froze like a rabbit at the severe tone.

“Dad,” Klaus whispered as he turned to look at the man standing in the middle of the black and white barbershop glowering at Klaus. If he hadn’t been wearing the old timey barber shop get up Klaus would have thought he’d fallen right into one of his own terrible memories.

“I expected my son who can conjure the dead to have brought me forth days ago,” Reginald said as he looked Klaus up and down with undisguised contempt.

“Oh,” Klaus said. For everyone besides him and Vanya it had only been a few days since their father died. 

“Yeah, well, you see It's complicated,” Klaus began, thinking back to the day of the funeral. “You know, I did _ try _ to summon you but--”

Reginald scoffed derisively and began trying to herd Klaus into the barber chair.

_ Yeah, not going to happen. _ Klaus thought as he side-stepped to keep the chair between them as he spoke.

“I _ did, _ but--”

“You were poisoning yourself,” Reginald said abruptly.

“Well, what do you expect? You'd just died. I was beside myself with grief.”

_ Okay that was a big fat lie and everyone here knew it. _

“Don't you dare try to use me as an excuse for your weakness.”

Despite everything Klaus felt the urge to roll his eyes.

“Oh, right, well, yeah, you had _ nothing _ to do with it. Locking me in a mausoleum with corpses when I was a child? No, you're right, it's irrelevant.”

Reginald heaved the most put upon sigh Klaus thought he’d ever heard the man ever give, and Klaus had bore witness to the fallout of The Slingshot Catastrophe of 2001.

“Would you just sit in the chair like a civilized human being Number Four?”

“Why? So you can wield sharp implements near my face? No thank you.”

“Don't worry,” Reginald said with all the warmth of marble. “You're already dead.”

“Oh well, that's a relief,” Klaus said sarcastically, still not sitting in the chair.

“You children like to blame everything on me,” Reginald continued in a very put upon voice.

“Well, you were a sadistic prick,” Klaus pointed out helpfully as he made his way over to the wooden bench and sat down. “Not to mention the world's worst father.”

“I just wanted you to live up to your potential,” Reginald said as if that explained anything, as if that made it all ok, made it worth it. “You especially. You're my greatest disappointment, Number Four.”

“Thanks daddy,” Klaus said, leaning back and closing his eyes.

“You only scratched the surface of what you were truly capable of. If only you'd focused!”

Klaus was just preparing for a long tirade when an uncomfortable thought suddenly popped into his head and made camp there.

“Wait, wait, wait, what potential?”

“No, instead, you pump yourself full of poison because you're afraid,” Reginald continued like a bull in a china shop paying Klaus no attention at all._ As per fucking usual. _ “Afraid of what? The dark?!”

_ Ok, that’s enough of that. _

“You know, I suggest you get down off your high horse there, dear Papa. You never had our best interests at heart. Look at your precious Number One: Luther found all the unopened letters he'd sent you. He knows that you sent him up to the Moon for _ nothing _, and he completely lost his shit.”

“That was foolish of me; I should have burned it all.”

_ Was he fucking serious? _

Klaus started laughing hysterically, covering his mouth with his hands to stifle the noise.

“That's your takeaway? Oh, wow. Yeah, course it is.”

“Not an ideal solution, I confess, but I knew that the world would soon need him, need all of you, and I had to do what was necessary.”

_ What? _

“Is he okay?”

Klaus blinked in surprise, unsure of which terrible thought running through his head to start with and instead letting his mouth take the lead.

“Do you care?”

Reginald drew back as if he were honestly offended by what Klaus had just said.

“Everything I did, everything I put you through, it was to prepare you, all of you, for something bigger than yourselves. You never understood that.”

“We were--we were just kids,” Klaus said, his volume with mounting along with his anger. “Little kids, and we did not deserve what you put us through!”

“You were never just kids,” Reginald said dismissively. “You were meant to save the world.”

Biting back his frustration Klaus pushed himself off the bench and started pacing the available space with his arms folded across his chest.

“Wait, so you knew knew all about this?” Klaus asked as he gestured vaguely around him. “About the apocalypse?”

“I knew that I had to bring you all back together, one way or another. The fate of the world depended on it.”

“Wh-what? What are you saying?”

_ Because, no. There was _ ** _no way_ ** _ that the old man had actually... _

“The only way to get you all back together was something momentous.”

_ Holy shit he actually _ ** _did._ **

“Wait. _ No. _ You don't mean you _ killed _ yourself?”

Reginald just hummed and nodded like it was no big deal.

“Oh, Christ,” Klaus muttered, turning away from the man who had tortured him his entire childhood. “You could never do things the easy way, could you? You couldn't have picked up a _ phone _?”

“Would you have answered?” Reginald asked with a disbelieving scowl. “Now, listen to me, Number Four: what I'm about to say is of great importan--”**BANG**

  


* * *

  


With an echoing crash loud enough to make his teeth rattle and a flash of White, the barbershop vanished and Klaus opened his eyes to the start of the end of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE! LEAVE! A! COMMENT! I need them! I live on them! They what keeps me going when I start to doubt my writing!


	15. It's The End Of The World As We Know It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for this chapter only: there is a brief mention of the violent murder of a child, it is not graphic nor described in detail but if this makes you uncomfortable please skip the Handler’s POV for this chapter.

**Allison**

Allison Hargreeves could barely think around the pain in her jaw and couldn’t even warn Luther as he’d come up the stairs behind her to look out for the woman wielding their father’s antique fishbat with surprising accuracy before vanishing with a swish of her voluminous black skirt.

As things stood they had both been knocked silly by the blows and were now huddled together listening to Diego and Patch engage Cha-Cha above them. Following behind them, sedate as ever Grace had appeared at the top of the stairs and began to tend to their injuries.

Luther leaned heavily against the wall and looked around blinking confusedly.

“Where did she go?” He asked Allison in pained groan.

Allison could only shrug helplessly as she felt Grace’s cold fingers on her face.

“Allison dear, I’m going to have to pop your jaw back into place. It will be painful but the bone itself isn’t cracked. Luther if you could tear a strip off your overcoat so I can bind her jaw it would be most helpful,” Grace directed them both in her smooth but commanding voice.

Luther, his temple still trickling blood far too quickly for Allison’s liking, nodded grimly and clumsily reached for the edge of his overcoat.

The front door burst open and a slender man with dark brown hair jerked to a halt as he took in the chaos.

If Allison could have frowned, she would have. Who the hell was_ this guy? _

**The Handler**

The Handler felt her blood red lips pull into a smile as she listened to the chaos unfolding in the next room. She’d missed field work since she’d been promoted to management, and even as an agent it had been rare to have a target with such fine taste in antique weapons. She hadn’t seen such a nice Priest’s Tool since she was a child and she’d used her father’s prized fishing tool to kill her younger brother. 

_ Maybe imminent death really did make people nostalgic _ the Handler thought as she methodically reloaded her gun and rolled her shoulders. Number Five would be back soon. Despite his claims to have no attachments, there was no way he wouldn’t show up to an attack on his idiot siblings.

Humming quietly to herself she ran her fingers down the spines of the books until she came to the copy of Extra Ordinary My Life as Number Seven by Vanya Hargreeves.

The Handler snorted quietly; Reginald Hargreeves was the dumbest smart person she had ever come across, and she’d personally recruited Number Five.

Afraid of the girl’s power and all he’d done was put it a pressure cooker and set the heat on low. Idiot. That’s what happens when you attempt to mess with things you do not fully understand, and human emotions would always be beyond Reginald Hargreeves grasp.

The front door burst open with a bang, and the Handler’s smile grew wider.

Putting her weight on her toes to avoid clicking her heels on the floor the Handler moved to the doorway and managed to get a good look of the horrified expression on Number Five’s face. He was younger than he’d been when she’d first met him, closer to his siblings’ age, and that was a clever bit of camouflage she couldn’t help but think approvingly. She clicked her right heel down on the floor to bring his attention to the gun she had trained at his chest.

“Hello Number Five,” she said, her voice almost sickly sweet. “Did you really think you would get away with this? You should have known better Number Five, it was always going to end with your family. Even _ you _ can’t change that.”

Five looked like he was preparing to Jump the necessary distance to rip out her throat when he was knocked to the side by a wall of White. Vanya Hargreeves stood in the middle of the foyer of the Umbrella Academy screaming with grief and rage.

The Handler smiled even as her feet left the ground.

_ What will be, will be. _

And the Apocalypse was back on schedule at last.

**Vanya**

Vanya Hargreeves felt like someone had ripped her heart out of her chest and crushed it in their hands.

Klaus was dead.

_ Klaus _was dead.

_ Klaus was _ ** _dead_ **.

Allison and Luther’s injuries, Diego and Eudora’s fight on the mezzanine, Five rushing in ahead of her, even Dave’s screaming grief took a backseat in Vanya’s mind, busy as it was trying to understand the information it was being given, because...Klaus couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t allowed. She’d told Klaus he wasn’t allowed to get hurt, they’d survived the Vietnam War, and she had just taken out the biggest threat to her family. They were safe. Klaus...Klaus _ couldn’t _ be dead.

Vanya had frozen in the entryway, unable to get any closer but unable to look away. Her heart refusing to accept what her mind already knew.

Amid the screaming and the gunfire Vanya heard a woman speak.

“You should have known better Number Five, it was always going to end with your family. Even you can’t change that.”

_ Oh, _ thought Vanya in a detached sort of way. _ That must be the Handler. _

When the howling started it took Vanya a long time to realize it was coming from her.

**Klaus**

Klaus Hargreeves opened his eyes in time to see the start of the end of the world. Klaus would be the first to tell you he had opened his eyes in some pretty bad places before: crackhouses, foxholes, dumpsters, ambulances, mausoleums, Limbo, and on one memorable occasion trapped in a clown car with a chain smoking man who didn’t like to be called a midget, but opening his eyes to find himself caught in a whirlwind of white energy and violent shaking was bad even by his admittedly low standards.

To make matters worse, Dave seemed to be crying inconsolably into Klaus’s chest, and Klaus didn’t even think before reaching out to run his fingers through Dave’s short hair.

“Are you okay?” Klaus asked the bent head resting on his torso, because even with everything else Klaus was dimly aware of happening around him, Dave was going to take first priority.

Dave choked on his next sob and jerked his head up so fast something popped in his neck to stare at Klaus with horrified red rimmed eyes.

“Klaus?” He whispered, almost too quietly to be heard over the roaring wind and the furious screaming, looking at Klaus as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Klaus looked around at the devastated atrium in minor confusion; ignoring the chandelier on the floor it hadn’t looked this bad earlier.

“Yeah, what happ--,” Klaus started to ask, but then he saw Vanya. His diminutive sister was glowing like the moon, holding the Handler suspended in the air with her power, screaming bloody murder as she sucked the life out of the other woman.

“Ah, I see,” Klaus said with a nod. “Help me up Dave, I need to get to Vanya.”

There is a flash of blue light and a slender man with dark hair and a pointed chin pops into existence next to Klaus.

“How the fuck are you alive?” Five growls out as his hands fly over Klaus’s chest looking for wounds.

“Klaus?” Dave croaked out in a lost voice even as his hands moved to help Klaus stand on his own feet.

“God didn’t like me,” Klaus said with a shrug. “How are you an adult Fivey?”

“Math too complicated for you to understand,” Five grit out as he looked around again. “Vanya’s energy keeps me from Jumping close, I don’t think you can get to her Klaus.”

“She’ll tear everything apart without meaning to, I have to try!” Klaus shouted over the din.

Glancing around he saw Allison, Luther, and Mom huddled together against the wall with Grace’s pale hands at Allison’s face, Luther’s bulk attempting to shield them from the worst of the wind. With a grunt of pain from Allison, Mom popped Allison’s jaw back into place.

_ Okie dokie then, they’ll have to worry about that later. _

* * *

Klaus missed it on his trek to his favorite sister, but Allison had noticed him making his way across the foyer and had cried out in shock, trying to say his name despite the agonizing pain in her jaw. Her pointing however did not go unnoticed by Luther or Grace who both turned around and stared with shock at Klaus who had brushed death off and was strolling towards the Apocalypse herself.

* * *

Ben met Klaus halfway across the foyer with a wild look in his eyes, his chest heaving with breaths he no longer needed.

“Klaus, what the hell?!” Ben screamed over the howling wind.

“God’s a bratty twelve year old who didn’t like me and sent me back!” Klaus yelled back. Next to him Dave jerked his head back in confusion but said nothing.

Vanya was only ten feet away from where Klaus now stood but Vanya stood with her back to the foyer and focused entirely on the Handler as her powers went absolutely haywire around her, as she lost herself to her rage.

“VANYA!” Klaus screamed helplessly as he and Dave struggled to remain upright.

Ben shook his head. “I can barely hear you Klaus, there’s no way Vanya can! You’ll have to get closer!”

_ Thanks ever so much for your insight Ben! _

Klaus pulled Dave behind him as he moved forward, he was pretty sure his plan would work. Like 60% sure. He hoped.

Vanya’s power had always felt warm to Klaus, like sun warmed silk rippling across his skin. This maelstrom felt more like a summer squall. Hot and violent and messy and Klaus struggled to keep upright until he was able to wrap his arms around Vanya’s shoulders.

“You have to let go Vanya,” Klaus whispered into his sister’s hair. “I’m okay, but you’re going to burn yourself up, you have to let go now.”

For one horrible terrifying moment Vanya did not react at all and then ever so slowly she began to turn in his arms staring at him with huge white eyes.

“Klaus?” She whispered so quietly that he felt it against his skin more than he heard it but he nodded all the same.

“Yeah, it's me. I’m okay, can you let go now?” Klaus looked down at the top of Vanya’s head even as he braced his feet against the shaking.

“Nonononono, you were dead,” Vanya whimpered against his chest, the shaking around them getting worse by the second.

“I was, but I’m okay now. See?” Klaus pulled back a little and tried to muster up a smile.

Vanya still did not look up.

“Seven please, please look at me,” Klaus said desperately, and slowly, slowly Vanya looked up. There were tear tracts knifed down her face and her eyes were still white. Klaus swallowed again. “I need you to let go Seven, you’ve got to let go or we’re all going to die.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you Four, I’m sorry,” Vanya whimpered reaching up to touch his face.

Klaus smiled weakly and with a small shudder they white glow fell from Vanya’s eyes and Klaus felt a warm pulse go through his entire body as Vanya slumped into his arms, exhausted but still awake.

“_ You _ ,” the Handler’s hate filled voice hissed out from where she was slumped on the floor clutching a broken ankle and glaring at Klaus. “_You’re _ what changed, what did you _ do?! _” 

The Handler was screaming by the end of her sentence, eyes darting around as if looking for a weapon to kill Klaus with, again, but Klaus was more focused on the ghosts around her. They looked more focused than he remembered most ghosts ever looking and the underlying terror he always felt in their presence had dulled to a low throb. More importantly the delicate feeling of control he hadn’t felt in well over a decade was humming under his skin.

_Oh, the ghosts were glowing now. Okie dokie then, this was a thing that happened apparently._

“Klaus, what’s happening to you?” Vanya’s terrified whisper brought his attention back to his hands...which were now glowing the same blue glow that surrounded the ghosts.

_Oh boy._

“Ben?!” Diego, still fighting with Cha-Cha on the mezzanine, called in a shocked voice as he took in the ghostly specter of his long dead brother.

All of the other Hargreeves turned in time to see their dead brother jerk in surprise at being noticed before spinning around and lifting his hoodie to reveal The Horror to a suddenly nervous looking Cha-Cha.

It was only the high pitched scream of agony coming from the Handler that caused Klaus to jerk back around and.._ .wow. _ Angry ghosts sure don’t waste time when they’re suddenly solid again apparently.

It was easy to tell when the ghosts were done; the screaming cut off like someone had flipped a switch. Klaus. Like Klaus had flipped a switch.

“We did it Klaus,” Vanya’s soft voice floated up from around Klaus’s elbow. “We stopped the Apocalypse.”

“Huh,” Klaus grunted in surprise. “How about that.”

And then he fainted.

* * *

**Epilogue: And I’m Doing Just Fine**

**Ben**

Benjamin Hargreeves sprawled back against the couch as he watched his family begin to relax around each other for the first time since The Umbrella Academy had been introduced to the world when they were children. 

“So what should we do for Apocalypse day?” Klaus asked as he painstakingly painted Vanya’s nails a glittery white.

Vanya shrugged as well as she could while keeping her right hand still.

“My concert isn’t until seven, we could have dinner with all the things we wanted as children but weren’t allowed to have. Pizza, cake, ice cream, the whole nine yards.”

“Brownies with ice cream,” Allison said wistfully.

“With peanut M&Ms in the batter,” Klaus agreed with a nod.

“I like strawberry rhubarb pie,” Luther offered cautiously, as if expecting to be told no.

“Pie’s good,” Diego agreed easily. “Especially warm with vanilla ice cream.”

“Mom’s got a recipe for bacon wrapped brie that looks good,” Five offered from where he was pouring himself a cup of coffee from the french press Vanya had brought over from her apartment.

He looked good; with a face that looked thirty instead of thirteen their brother looked dapper in Reginald’s suits rather than the almost elfin appearance he’d had as an adolescent.

“Latkes!” Dave offered from where he was lounging on the sofa breaking Vanya out of her reverie.

Vanya turned to smile at him. “Miriam gave me her recipe before we left, I’m sure with mom’s help I can manage it.”

“And ruin your paint job,” Klaus asked with a raised eyebrow at Vanya. “I don’t think so Vanya darling.”

“Boo! You’re no fun,” Vanya said easily.

“We should have a toast whenever it was that Five Jumped here in the first timeline,” Klaus said suddenly, screwing the applicator back into the polish bottle and turning to look at Five. “What time did you get here the first time?”

Five shrugged.

“Had to reset every watch I ever found, but I’m pretty sure it was some time in the early afternoon. The evening paper hadn’t been delivered and it was a good few hours before it got dark so it was probably before four.”

“Let’s call it at 2:30 then, shall we?” Vanya asked brightly. “We can make mimosas!”

“And hope that Five doesn’t vanish in a puff of timey wimey contradictions,” Eudora said brightly. She had already started drinking.

Luther froze then whirled around to look at Five.

“You’re not going to disappear are you?”

Five rolled his eyes.

“No Luther, I’m not going to disappear.”

Klaus suddenly started giggling.

“What if the other you showed up and there were two Fives running around?”

Vanya snorted and Five rolled his eyes even harder.

“Don’t be ridiculous Klaus.” 

  
  


**Five**

Five Hargreeves balled his fists and prepared to Jump one more time and began to punch through the barrier only he could feel when he felt it snap back into place and sent him sprawling on the pavement.

“Shit!”

An old woman walking a tiny poodle scowled at him as she passed.

“Language!”

“English,” he snapped back sarcastically, getting to his feet and dusting himself off. He balled his fists again and prepared to jump...and nothing. Shit.

“Come on,” he growled in frustration, the familiar blue energy barely appearing at all before vanishing like smoke.

“Shit,” he hissed under his breath before looking around.

The street was moderately crowded and the weather was mild, early spring perhaps, and nobody looked too ridiculous style-wise so he was probably close to his target of five years in the future but he needed to be sure before he returned triumphant to the academy.

Up ahead there’s a man in a suit buying a paper from the newsstand, and Five watches as the man removes the business section and toss the rest down on the bench as he walks away. Five ran forward to grab it and quickly scanned the front for a date.

April 1st 2019

Well..._ shit. _

* * *

The entryway looked like a small war had taken place while he’d been gone. The chandelier was missing and there were gouge marks in the wood paneling on the walls. Five couldn’t imagine a scenario that would make Reginald Hargreeves overlook disorder in the “public space” of the Academy. Not anywhere anyone might see at least, if Reginald was bringing someone over to coerce them into something he liked his domicile to inspire feelings of control. This chaos did not suggest control. What the hell had _ happened _ while he’d been gone?

Five swallowed and felt his throat click. He had been gone for seventeen years. He’d been **gone**. Gritting his teeth in frustration he tried once more to Jump back, feeling the now familiar sizzle over his hands that meant he wasn’t going anywhere.

Furious with himself he threw his hands up in disgust and stomped into the parlor to be greeted by his own smirking face above the mantle.

_ What. The. Fuck. _

Five was so focused on the painted image of his face--_ his chin wasn’t really that pointed was it? _\--that it took him a moment to clock the humming and shuffling coming from behind him. Coming down from the second level with his eyes half-closed was a man humming along to the music that must be coming from his bright orange headphones and skipping down the stairs. The man was tall and lanky with bony elbows, wild curly hair and a dusting of facial hair over a familiar jawline.

“Klaus?” Five whispered is surprise. He had figured the odds of finding any of siblings save Luther still in this place after they became adults were pretty low. But here Klaus was dressed in a skirt without a hint of fear that dad was going to come yell at him about appearances. Maybe the old man was out of town?

Klaus shimmied by with a small hand wave of acknowledgement and then stopped dead in his tracks, pushed his headset off his ears, walked backwards until he was level with Five again and stared at him hard.

“Weren’t you older five minutes ago?”

“Uh,” Five almost bit his own tongue. Did he really just say ‘uh’ like some slack jawed yokel, in front of Klaus of all people?

Klaus, who’s eyebrows were now somewhere near his hairline just turned his head back towards the stairs.

“VANYA! WE’VE GOT A PROBLEM!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHAHAHAHAHA! I’M NOT DONE YET! YOU CAN’T GET RID OF ME THAT EASILY!
> 
> In all seriousness, I’ve been planning a sequel for a while now but I didn’t want to spoil the plot twist. The sequel is mostly going to be oneshots of the Hargreeves siblings working through their trauma together and becoming actual functional human beings. It's going to be angsty and fluffy at the same time and I’m super excited! So be on the lookout for the next part of this series. I’m also going to reorder this series so that the prequel fic I wrote is technically be part one.  
PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT! I'M ACTUALLY SUPER NERVOUS ABOUT THIS CHAPTER AND I WANT TO KNOW HOW PEOPLE THINK IT WENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
ALSO! I will be editing the previous parts of this series as I feel my writing had improved since I started this series almost a year ago.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Banana Incident Of 1999](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21076916) by [StillTryingToFly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StillTryingToFly/pseuds/StillTryingToFly)


End file.
